Niche

It all comes down to finding my niche. I've decided that. What's my niche? Trashy romance? I'm working on it -- an average of 500+ readers a month can't be wrong. But what about the rest of me? What about the tens of thousands of dollars I spent, and will continue to spend, on my education?

In high school -- and this is indeed a cringe-worthy moment, Chantel! -- I wrote an editorial for the school paper and, being the editor, got it published without anyone (namely the advisor) reading it over. It was, um, an article on the merits of the NC-17 rating and how (and I quote!) a "whole new generation could experience" a particular flick that, until my college years, I thought was something entirely different. How was I, then still a prim little Catholic school girl, to know that someone would name a woman Emmanuel?! And film her in 3-D no less!

Yeah, how's that for cringing?
(I'm much wiser now. An all-women's Catholic college will do that to you, I suppose.)

My editorial on the senior class play was much better informed, polarizing the class and making our point known by having a good many seniors sign the editorial in protest to what we -- rightly or wrongly -- considered unfair.

The point is that once-upon-yesterday, I didn't shy from making my opinions known. I had a niche.

We're back to Guy again. I watched his presentation twice today, showing it to both of my management classes. Tomorrow the organizational business class gets to see it. Wednesday brings it to my economics class.

Make meaning, find a niche, write. My brain was on overdrive today.

Truthfully, this blog alone has a niche: keeping me in touch with family and friends. I'm keeping this niche. What I want to do is write something professional, something relevant. Methinks it's time for a third blog.

And, since conventional wisdom is "write what you know," I'm going to do that. I'm also going to go out on a few limbs and, while they'll be much better researched then that high school editorial, I'm going to see just what happens when I stop apologizing for or just flat-out avoiding having an opinion.

My topics? What else? Education, management, and ethics.

More to come! I'll keep you, eh, posted!

New Title, New Ideas, New Approach...

... new reason to stress.

It's all Guy's fault. Not that I ever met him, mind you. Heck, until today I thought he was the fellow behind Kawasaki motorcycles. It's all a particular mentor's fault, too. If he hadn't mentioned Guy to me in a conversation, I wouldn't have clicked on the link to his blog, I wouldn't have read his remarks, and I wouldn't have watched the video for his Art of the Start presentation.

But, the Fates have their quirks, and now here I am... pondering the role of this blog in the great blogosphere out there.

I thought of e-mailing him with a pleasant little "thank you for changing my entire perspective on the world of management and this is how I'm going to use your ideas/blog/video in my classroom," but haven't been able to craft a note that doesn't sound like a burgeoning sycophant penned it. Yet. I have at least 45 minutes before my next class kicks in...

But what does this blog do? What is it's point? Is it really just a little vanity rag to showcase the mis-adventures of Gavie and talk about my life? I'd really rather not become one of those mindless bloggers who just rants.

If a blogger posts and no one reads it, does she really post?


Well, gang, the ego is kicking in right along with the realization that I need to write or else I will implode (explode?) due to the innumerable amount of opinions crowding my brain. Today's thought: why not write something with meaning?

(By the way, that's Guy's first rule: make meaning.)

What do I need to write?

Welcome, little one.

Michelle!!!!!!!
So long time has gone since we exchanged words....

I have the great news!!
Edoardo is born at 2.29 am, on Monday, April 2nd. All is going well.

Now we have a good reason to meet: to make our children play together.

Take care,
Nick

Dear little Edoardo,

Welcome to the world! Welcome from your Aunt Michelle over here in Pittsburgh (which was, I might add, recently named the Most Livable City)! Your daddy and I met a long, long time ago, when we were teenagers and he was on a school trip to the U.S. His principal and my principal were somehow friends, or friendly (I never was too good on remembering some details), and the next thing I knew I was one of the "student ambassadors" chosen to lead a total stranger around for the day.

How do I describe it? Your dad and I hit it off and, twelve years later, here we are. We've kept in touch, fallen silent, and resumed our friendship as if only minutes had passed. I've a large box of his letters tucked safely in my closet. On my bookshelf, I've a three-ring binder with a year's worth of e-mails, all exchanged in the twelve months after 9-11. Your dad knew me before I met my husband, the "big guy," and long before I had my son Gavie. Of course, I can say the same. I knew him when -- when he was single, when he was in the military -- and I know him now, now that he's a proud papa, now that he's not sleeping much.

I hope you're keeping him on his toes!

The picture I've posted on this blog is the only one I have of your father and me. It was taken that day, when I was a senior in high school and dying to get out into the wide world of college. We were in "my" office, where the student newspaper, The Minaret, was produced. I had my own key and felt very, very important. By the way, I think you dad's finally taller then me. :)

Gavie is four now, just old enough to teach you a few tricks guaranteed to make both of your parents go grey. When we come to Italy someday, you two will no doubt have a very good time.

Take care, little one.

Love,

Aunt Michelle

P.S.

Tell your dad to send more pics!!!

Finished? So soon?

Was it really four months ago that I drove up the winding drive and started what I had pledged oh-so-long ago? Find an adjunct position at my beloved alma mater, Seton Hill. A New Year's Resolution penned January 2, 2006, just a week after losing my father. Sometimes I wonder if he had a hand in it, if he gave a little nudge to someone down here.

We like to believe that the dead can do that. It helps make the absence less real.

But this post isn't to conjure anything but the amazing sense of accomplishment (for lack of a better word) felt today as I left the Hill. Natalie Merchant's song Wonder came on when I hit the CD play button.

When it was first released, I misheard the lyrics.... laughed as she came to my cradle, oh this child will be able... laughed as my body she lifted, oh this child will be gifted -- with love, with patience, and with pain... she'll make her way...

The muse that comes to bless this child doesn't promise the gift of pain, I realized after a few listenings. She promises the gift of faith.

I like the first, the misunderstood version, better.

Call it a survival tactic, a way to maintain sanity perhaps, but I think that there is a certain gift that comes with pain -- the gift of strength. The cliche "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" means that you do experience everything unhappy. You do have moments when it seems that the world is falling apart and that you are a powerless nothing. You have moments when you aren't riding a wave but tumbling within it, drowning.

It allows you to have other moments, ones like today, when I finished my first stint as an adjunct. They called me "professor," even though -- technically -- I'm not. (Yet. I'll know in January.) Seems that I accidentally put that title on my course website. I don't know quite how I did that. I don't know how to remove it, either. (Then again, I still have trouble with the copy machine's stapling function.)

I'm going to miss this group. They were incredible. Attentive, prepared, literate, well-mannered... a teacher's dream. Virtually every class ended the same way: four o'clock would come too soon, and I'd walk to my car feeling as if I could conquer the world, humbly astounded at myself. Was I the same one who, up until last December, questioned whether or not I should remain a teacher or pursue that writing career? Should I admit to that?

This August will mark my tenth year teaching. Ten years is nothing in many respects. In others, it's astounding. My classroom stories from those ten years range from nightmarish to healing, the worst closer to the beginning -- as I suspect would be the norm for any career's learning curve. After all, how I reacted at 24 is no longer how I'd react at 34. Older and wiser, the survivor of a few crash courses in administrative politics and student threats, I know better when to stare adversaries down and when to retreat gracefully.

Seton Hill brought healing I didn't know I still needed. It brought self-discipline, too, which I knew I needed but could never quite manage.

A confession: I was terrified the first day of WCT I. Knee-shaking, white-knuckled terrified. Who was I , fourteen years out of WCT itself, to teach this class? What if I forgot something? Mistaught something from the book? What if they took one look at me and demanded a real teacher? Ten years is a blink. Every ounce of credibility I felt I had went into hibernation mode.

But, as you know, my panic was apparently for naught. If anything, the fear allowed me to grow as a teacher. I am a PowerPoint queen now. My binder of typed notes is four inches thick -- and that's without the fifteen corresponding PPT presentations with thirty or so slides each. (Yeah, pass the pocket-protector. I'm a nerd.)

...people see me, I'm a challenge to your balance... I'm over your head now, I astound you and confound you too....

I'm not so arrogant to think that I strike awe in people. Myself, yes. Others? Give me another decade and ask again. I am, however, pretty damn sure that I've confounded quite a few of you out there. And, if my students could tell you, I'm good at pushing people off balance with my two (in)famous questions: Why? and What if we're wrong?

I have one more, which I didn't use enough this term: What if we're right?

You know, it's easy to think about being wrong. Being right though... man, that's terrifying. It means that we might know what we're doing. I'm up for the challenge though.

So what now? Teach some more, write some more, apply for that Ed.D to become a real professor.

And have more fun then I ever thought possible. You know what? I think that dreams are coming true.

Thanks, gang. Watch out for that plaque.
You know why.

Mindlessness at its best.

That last post was pretty heavy, so methinks that lightness is in order this time around. And, I ask you, how much lighter can one get then Britney Spears?

(I can promise you that this blog involves no stress and, apparently, very little in terms of reality.)

Click here to find the MSNBC article: Turning the Tables. It's the second blurb down, the one after Paris being mocked by Prince.

In short, every tabloid's dreamgirl now wants her fans to sneak up on their friends at midnight and take candid, paparazzi-like photos of them. These pics are supposedly going to be used to promote her newest fragrance, Midnight Fantasy.

I don't know, readers. It sounds a bit stalker-ish to me.

Now, there are some rules, of course. Underwear must be worn, for example. Violence and nudity are discouraged, too.

Um... since she's telling her fans that midnight is the witching hour, well.... gee, how do I put this? If you're not doing something that involves nudity or violence at midnight, just what are you doing? Probably sleeping. Maybe, like me, staring at the computer and blogging away. There's an exciting pic: little old me sans make-up in old jeans and an even older t-shirt, sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop. There's a midnight fantasy for you. (Eeeek!)

Frankly, I feel sorry for the girl. She's screaming for someone to pay attention to her. Not to her money. Not to her fame. Not to her mistakes. To her. The person she is underneath all of that tabloid press. Most of us have been witness -- willing or unwilling due to the media -- to her rise and fall; and most of us probably watch with the same morbid fascination we have with train wrecks. It's not that we want to stare. It's just that we can't always help ourselves.

My question is this: who came up with this idea? Who actually thought it would be a good idea to suggest taking secret -- and no doubt un-flattering -- photos of friends for an ad campaign?

"Midnight Fantasy" is a perfume. Perfumes are to attract. Perfumes are sold by beautiful people. Perfumes are not sold by candid pics of my friend sleeping on the couch at midnight... and drooling. Pics like that are meant to be photocopies and hung up in the dorm. Perhaps given a clever caption and sent to a few others. But to sell a perfume whose very name suggests sex, desire, and perfection?

If I buy a new scent, I want to know that the idea being sold with it is one of attractiveness and happiness... not a few shots of some average joes or janes who were blindsided by their camera-wielding "buddies." This isn't the Dove Real Woman ad campaign, you know.

The truth is this: if I'm going to have a midnight fantasy, readers, I suspect there might be more to it then my tired friends chatting on-line.

Was this mindless enough? I think so... thought, somewhat ironically, I did come back and edit it twice since posting this afternoon...

Columbine revisitied

I like to think that there is a special place in Hell for people who chain the exit doors and open fire. In truth, I think that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brains behind South Park, had something when they portrayed Hitler having a pineapple shoved up his a** on a regular basis. Come to think of it, perhaps a pineapple isn't enough. Perhaps those who leave their baby daughters out in the snow to freeze to death, who put dying babies into book bags and shove them under twin beds, and who emotionlessly slaughter their classmates need the whole f**king pineapple tree. One tree after another. Continuously.

Day in and day out, I teach my business communications students to write without emotion. I tell them time and time again that to calm down before they pen those professional missives.

I don't think I can do that today.

How lucky I am to not know anyone at Virginia Tech. How lucky I've been over the years to know nary a soul involved in any of the school shootings.

Each day I walk into my own classroom. Each day I stand before students who have book bags that I would never dare look into, believing that ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know who's packing and who's dealing. A stupid sentiment, I'm sure. But am I really any safer knowing what they carry? Or will it only make me more paranoid? Everyday at work, we teachers know exactly what we walk into. Last week a former student was shot by police after a brief foot chase. Had he not pulled his gun, they probably wouldn't have fired. Incidentally, he's considered a "person of interest" in his stepfather's murder. Two weeks ago a seventeen-year-old girl died from an apparent overdose. The woman whose baby was found under the bed... yep, had connections here. Each term, at least one student will have to drop out due to incarceration. Students who go m.i.a. are common.

We walk into that and we teach and we try so damn hard to pull those who want to learn up to where they want to be but don't quite have the coping skills to do on their own. We pester and cajole, bribe and bargain. Let me help you. Come to class. If you at least try, I can show you where you're right and where we can work to improve. I can't help you if you don't come to school. We call absent students every day. We try to live by the school's catchphrase: "Students First. We Care."

We pound our heads against the wall sometimes.

I don't yet know the story behind today's massacre. As I write this, they've yet to identify the gunman. It makes me think, though, about what must go on in such a person's mind. Is such an act really a last resort, as pop psychology and magazines tend to explain? Somehow I doubt it. Not this time.

It makes me think about my students, many of whom I know -- for the most part -- lack basic coping/problem-solving skills.

Tomorrow we have finals. Tomorrow I will have a student or two or six walk in and say: "I don't have a pencil. What do I do?" That person will honestly not know what to do when faced with a Scan-tron exam and no pencil. Bringing a pencil or asking a classmate to borrow one will not cross that student's mind. When you grow up in an environment that does not prepare you for the pressure that comes with an authority figure asking you where your pencil is, how will you deal with the student who attacks you, who perhaps accuses you of dating her man or sleeping with his woman?

We had a forum of student safety some time ago. I was mercifully absent that day. It wasn't, you see, a meeting on improving our physical safety on campus. It was to discuss creating a "safe" environment in the classroom -- one where the students would feel like they could raise their hands to answer questions and risk being wrong.

Oh the goodness of that migraine. I'm not sure that I could have handled that meeting. The next day a fellow teacher told me that a request for call buttons was denied because they "didn't want the students to think that [we] didn't trust them."

It is the consensus of several of us that we won't be a target. We'll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our students won't be the ones who chain the doors and plan; they'll be the ones who pull the gun out of a book bag and start to fire at whomever "wronged" them and God help the bystanders.

So why do I stay? Why don't I go work on some nice, safe little campus somewhere? Maybe because such a thing doesn't exist anymore. Maybe because I know that I'm as safe as my brother, who is an administrator in a very well-off school district. Wealthy kids snap just as easily as poor. My mother actually admitted that she feared for both of us, not just me. We know, from experience, that even "nice, safe schools" have students who might say the wrong thing and turn everyone's world upside-down.

But why stay? Why stay in education at all? To martyr myself someday on the alter of idealism? I suppose that's where it's heading. I suppose that this blog has turned into another ponderance on why I bother to teach grammar during the week when, on weekends, I can explore a myriad of ideas -- ranging from the role of women in the creation of early weaponry to the role of the church in current political ideologies. I can ask "why" and "what if we're wrong" and not worry about someone's mind liquefying because I went too high on Bloom's Taxonomy. I can take risks and ask students to examine their belief systems.

I answered that question before. I stay because, right now, I have a point and make a difference. When I stop having a point, making a difference, then I'll hand in my resignation. I love my students, the vast majority of which are no different from me. My coworkers make each day even more enjoyable. We laugh and talk, have happy hours, punk each other now and then, and find comfort in knowing that we're all in the same boat at work. While I'd love another job, one with more intellectual challenges, I'm content to take my time and find the "perfect" one. I'm still lucky, I don't have to rush and take the first one I come across.

For now, while I look for that perfect job, I'll watch Cartoon Network with Gavie and eat popcorn and laugh at Lazlo and Blue and all of those other lovely little blips of ink -- and, while he giggles at their antics, I'll try to figure out how to teach him how to cope.

The Ballad of Turtle Louch

My kid is a great traveller. He didn't complain much -- for a near-four-year-old. He took the airport pat-down in stride (nothing beats taking your shoes off in public), didn't fuss overly much about sitting in the holding area before we boarded (actually, watching the luggage loading was pretty fascinating to the little fella), and loved the airplane bathroom (I probably don't have to explain how I know that little detail).

At Disney, he woke up each morning eager to get out to the day's adventures. Breakfast was a struggle, I admit, because -- after all -- why waste time eating when you can be riding Peter's Pan's Adventure or seeking out Captain Hook for that coveted autograph? For once, there was nary a protest when we said rise and shine.

Each evening, after a long day of sensory-overload, he'd fall asleep on the shuttle that took us back to our hotel, the Caribbean Beach Resort. We'd carry him to the room and tuck him in with Turtle, his current favorite "pet." Each morning, we'd leave Turtle behind. Safe in the confines of the room.

Or so we thought.

Turtle, we had told Gavie, was much better suited to the hotel. There were too many people and too many opportunities for him to get lost at the various parks. Gavie concurred.

So we went to MGM Studios, we visited the Animal Kingdom, and we explored the Magic Kingdom sans Turtle. That was okay, Gwammy bought him a few net "pets" to hold throughout the day. We ate at a dozen different restaurants, had too much cotton candy, and gorged on popcorn. All the while, Turtle sat at the hotel, guarding Gavie's daily acquisitions.

Or so we thought.

You see, one morning was a bit rushed and, well, we left Turtle in Gavie's bed. That night, returning with a sleeping child, we gave the toy little thought. We didn't, in fact, think about Turtle until the next night. It was then that we realized that it was gone.

While Gavie slept, we turned out hotel rooms upside-down. We found a few coins, but that was it. Turtle, we could only assume, had been accidentally bundled up with the sheets when the cleaning lady came through. We called home.

"Code red, code red, Louch homeland security is at elevated levels. Code red, all stations are on alert," the big guy told his younger sister when we called home the next day -- while Gavie was on a ride with Gwammy and out of earshot. He told her about Turtle. Na, as we call her, helped fill in the biggest blank we had: where Turtle came from. Seems that Kohl's was the answer to that. It was from a Kohl's Cares for Kids promotion some time ago.

Knowing the trauma that we'd run into once Gavie missed Turtle, Uncle Donn manned the computer station and hit E-Bay. Within minutes he found a replacement thanks to someone buying a few dozen and reselling them. He and Na re-assured us that all would be well. True, but until that new Turtle came through, we were still on alert. Gwammy bought Gavie a new turtle, Squirt from Finding Nemo. For the remainder of the trip, my son somehow remained none-the-wiser, blissfully unaware that his beloved Turtle was, probably at that very moment, in the spin cycle at Disney's gigantic laundry facility.

It wasn't until Monday night that he noticed. Can we say "heart-broken sobs"? Holding my little boy as he cried for his best friend made me swear that Turtle II would never leave our house. Ever.

Two long days later, the Turtle "came home from Disney," as we told Gavie. "He was staying to help Mickey Mouse a little bit," we lied.

As long as you don't look at Gavie's Christmas portrait (with the original Turtle lovingly clutched in his three-year-old grip) and the different pattern of spots on Turtle II's back, you'd never be the wiser.

A week later, a small padded envelope arrived from Disney. We'd filed a report with the Lost and Found Department, but knowing the size of the laundry facilities and the sheer number of hotels, we had little hope. Judging by the size of the envelope, it was too small to be Turtle anyway. It was probably some little stuffed Mickey, sent to console my son.

It was, instead, one well-washed Turtle. He not only went through the whole wash cycle but also the entire drying process. You know, I never knew that stuffed animals could shrink!

I can only hope that God forgives the white lies of mothers. "Gavie! Come here, honey! Mickey sent Turtle's little brother to you!"

The Magic Kindgom, part I

Hell hath no fury as a mother scorned... by Mickey Mouse.

Okay, I know that moms can go into all sorts of "that's my child" rages for all sorts of reasons -- playground bullies, unfair teachers, whatever. But Mickey Mouse? He's the icon of all that is warm and fuzzy! He's the personification of all that is happiness! Not Mickey Mouse!

Yep. Mickey Mouse. The Big Cheese himself.

We spent last week at Disney World. It was wonderful. Gavie was all eyes, overwhelmed by the sheer magic of Walt's dream. He's at that perfect age: the one where everything he sees is real. When he met Mary Poppins, Captain Hook, and Buzz Lightyear, he was nothing but ear-to-ear smiles. When we rode Peter Pan's Flight, he was entranced. It's a Small World was one of his favorites and being able to sit in Pinocchio's restaurant for lunch and overlook the Small World boats AND WAVE was almost as delightful. Especially when the merry boaters would wave back to him.

Gavie is the ultimate traveler. He took Sunday's 4 a.m. wake-up call in stride, loved the airplane, relished the ride on Disney's Magic Express to the Caribbean Beach hotel, and hit Epcot running. He didn't stop until late that afternoon when he fell asleep on Spaceship Earth (you know, the giant silver golf ball) while he and my mother, Gwammy, went through for the second time that day.

But where, you ask, does Mickey fit in? Monday night. The eight o'clock Spectromagic parade (a.k.a. Electrical Light Parade). We had front-row curbside seats for the event. It was going to be grand!

And it was.

Until that overgrown rodent didn't know my son was waving at him. Blasted parade choreography! That mouse was facing the wrong way when the float went past! He waved to someone else's kids! Nevermind that Gavie was apparently unphased. Nevermind that the much more important Captain Hook waved. That was Mickey, dammit! And my son waved! THEREFORE, the mouse should have turned immediately and waved back!

(Ahhhh, if only all of life's problems could be that simple, huh?)

I guess we can add one more irrational motherly behavior to my list.

They're rats with fluffy tails.

So there I was, surfing the 'net when BAM! today's topic hit me. Squirrels! Seems that that fuzzy little beasts cause more power outages each year then lightening.

Here's the link: Suicide Squirrels

Here's my blog... an essay on why I hate squirrels.

Imagine, dear readers, a house of seventy-odd years. Character galore: hardwood floors and stained glass windows. A tiled fireplace. Professionally landscaped twenty years previous, meaning that what had been envisioned was well into fruition. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

And sitting next to said house, a tree. No doubt older then the house itself. The tree shades the front yard so completely that the living room and what became the nursery are comfortably cool all summer. The branches arch up, reaching to the sky and touching the clouds above. Each fall, it's an explosion of red and gold, so glorious that one almost doesn't mind raking.

And in said tree are squirrels. Furry little rotten bastards hell-bent on getting into my house. Brown rats with fluffy tails. One in particular, a ring-leader I'm convinced, knew how to slip in and curl up in my laundry basket. It's beady black eyes closed in repose as it enjoyed the warmth that's literally heaped on it, as shirts and pants and towels slide down to chute and land atop it's fat little carcass.

No doubt the dislike I possess comes from the moment I pulled a shirt from the basket and found him rolled up and ready to hibernate. No doubt his desire to torment me came from my ear-splitting, high-pitched scream of fright -- a scream apparently so harsh to his ears that he actually froze. Unmoving. Not even blinking, so terror-ridden was he. He gave nary a protest when the Big Guy came down and threw a rug over the basket, effectively trapping him inside.

Apparently, though, being ousted from my warm abode did not sit well with the creature.

There's something very disturbing about walking up to your front porch and looking up... to see three squirrels watching you and chirping. Rather macabre and Hitchcock-ish, if you will. I was waiting for the beasts to leap upon me much like one of Alfred's birds attacked Tippi a half-century ago.

Thankfully, they decided that menacing chatter was enough.

A little over a year later, they'd no doubt been waiting for the perfect opportunity, I was in the laundry room when I heard scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch. I thought it was my cat playing around the furnace. Perhaps she was chasing a bug.

Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch.

I was several months pregnant by this point and too tired to really investigate, so I just stood there and waited for her to come into view.

Scritch.

No. Not the cat. The squirrel. The glorified rodent. AND FRIEND. Playing about my furnace.

No screams this time, just good old-fashioned legwork. I tore up the steps and, in my least-ladylike vocabulary, told my husband and neighbor that we had, to put it politely this time, "guests."

Two of the four-footed overgrown vermin came back just weeks before we were to move. This time they dove down the chimney.

The joke was on them.

You see, the fireplace had been sealed. They landed underneath it where the ashes would have gathered. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. One apparently broke its neck (it wasn't in there long enough to starve), so we only had to deal with one live one. My brother grabbed him about his neck and literally threw him out of the garage.

Did you know that squirrels bounce?

(Disclaimer: no squirrels were harmed in the writing of this post.)

Luck

Well, yeah... it's about 20 degrees out, tops... and, yeah, there's icy snow out there... but after last week's sub-zero temperatures, I'm thinking we're enjoying a little Indian summer. Yesterday, for example, we hit a high of 32 degrees. Break out the t-shirts and fire up the grill for some kielbasa, fellow Pittsbughers! I boldly went sans hat while leaving work yesterday! And my ears were NOT frozen right off of my head. Good thing, eh?

Coming home today would have been nerve-wracking, to be honest, had we been in the car. Luckily, we bus. Feeling a bus skid, even a few short feet, is not a pleasant sensation -- mainly because I have one single thought: "if this huge thing skids, what will my Saturn do?" Luck was on our side, though, because we made it to the park-n-ride and home before the sleet/ice/snow really kicked in.

I think that pretty much every kid and teacher in the affected areas are praying for a snow. I know I am. Truth be told, I'm torn! If I go in, assuming school is open, it will be a ghost town. Translation: no classes due to a lack of students! (I have the "one-student rule," which means that I do not teach when there is only one other body in the classroom. There has to be two for me to do anything. It used to be the "50% rule," but that was too often to be feasible. Too many of my adult students have outside issues that keep them from attending regularly; e.g., kids, court, difficult bosses, court dates, or even incarceration.)

If we have school but lack students, I can spend my hours getting paperwork caught up, writing my Saturday lecture (three hours of lecture and a killer PPT presentation, I rock thank you very much!), kibbitzing with coworkers, and probably ordering a pizza around noon.

Then again, if I stay home, I can play in the snow with Gavie. That doesn't even need an explanation as to why that would be attractive! With a hill in the backyard, a sled, and six or more inches of snow....

My fingers are crossed.

Um... a title? Got me.

Sometimes one can be too awake.

Today's class was too short. We're covering the Middle Ages -- the Dark Ages, if you will. The era of Charlemagne, of the Treaty of Verdun, and of the Vikings. We're talking about the rise of an empire and of its fall. We're looking at the way in which weak kings and strong aristocrats manipulated a system and how traditional inheritance systems can destroy a whole kingdom. We looked at original documents, discussed the universitae of the day, and laughed heartily at a bit of artwork left over from the day -- the stone relief of a medieval classroom you see at your left. Even back then, students pondered the deepest question of life: is class over yet?

But my brain, I fear, was racing. Fascinated by the thought of the invention of the horseshoe and a different style of horse collar. Add the twin ideas windmills and watermills, and you have yourself an agricultural evolution that freed the serfs and eventually made need for castles a thing of the past and you have the makings of a lecture that I was chomping at the bit (pardon the pun) to get to today.

Imagine! Being able to grow more food then you need! We can sell it! Eureka! The men can go back to school! Learning can be renewed, trades can be pursued, and specializations can begin. Again! (Maslow would be proud! We're once-again on our way to self-actualization! It's pretty hard to self-actualize when you're busy carrying that pocketful of posies to ward off the plague.)

Then again, with the return of the luxury of thoughts beyond survival, people went back to the Roman insanity of seeking happiness while on earth. Which, of course, brought up a whole host of problems as people tried to be happy AND obey the church's edicts. That one about sex only for procreation was a tricky one, I understand. Did you know that s-e-x was just plain b-a-d in the early church's eyes? Marriage wasn't that great either. But, if you had to -- you know -- do it, it was best done within the confines of marriage. Divorce was illegal, of course. No matter how ugly, quarrelsome, or barren the woman may be. The church was a bit different back then. For example, St. Thomas of Aquinas remarked that women were only good for procreation. Meanwhile, the Germanic influence on the church itself resulted in the idea of religious freedom -- provided that your were Christian. Otherwise, well, you found yourself on the wrong side of the sword.

Kinda ironic given that just a bit earlier the Christians were the ones lighting Nero's garden parties. Literally.

Ah well. No one ever said we learned from history. Besides, it's all about pots and pans now. That's literally, too. Captain Chaos is jumping on my couch to the song Pots and Pans, which comes to us from the latest Kohl's for Kids book, Dog Train by Sandra Boynton.

Perhaps I sound like the biggest nerd out there -- one with attention issues, today. Perhaps I am! But even you can probably appreciate this line from the text: "One Germanic professor was finally dismissed from his position after stabbing one too many of his colleagues at faculty meetings."

One too many?

Fellow teachers, can you imagine? Think about all of those lovely meetings we've been to... the ones where people talk and talk and talk and talk and yet say nothing. Think about the ones where the powers-that-are bring in "authorities" on topics such as classroom safety and engaging the learners. Remember all those helpful chats? My favorite was the one where I was told that simply invading a disruptive student's space will cause him or her to immediately quiet down and behave.

That's about the time I get told to "f**k off" by the kid.

That same speaker played The Rose for us and told us that we, the teachers, could inspire a student to be anything. Hell, half the time I'm just hoping to inspire them to stay conscious.

So anyway, back to faculty meeting homicides and my favorite question: can you imagine?

Well, such fantasies aside...! Oh, yeah, he's still jumping. Got the song on "repeat." I think this is the fifteenth playing. (In case you're wondering, I gave Chaos permission to jump. I also give him permission to get really, really muddy in the summer and we had a blast leaping into freshly raked leaves this past fall. It was worth the blisters.)

Sometimes one can be too awake. That's where I came in. Feudalism, universities, and serfs. Economic emancipation. All thanks to being able to shoe a horse and harness the wind! Remember the poem For the Want of a Nail? Economic emancipation thanks to a nail! Does this mean I might someday emancipate myself thanks to a pencil? Dunno. Anyone want a copywriter who specializes in educational and business-related topics? On-line and PowerPoint lectures my speciality.

Now what do I say? Hmmm.... being that this blog is proof of what I'm claiming, perhaps the best thing to say - for now at least! -- is:

Blender solo!

Time marches on

Tonight friend of ours came over, bringing their two sons. How amazing two watch their oldest and Gavie share the oversized sketch book and make blue circles on their respective pages. How fun to hold their youngest, who will be one on Gavie's fourth birthday. The seven of us sat around the kitchen table and shared pizza. Us adults talked about the excitingly mundane: insurance, taxes, work. We joked, too, of course, she and I playing "I knew you when."

She knew me just as the big guy and I were buying our first house and just starting a three-year road to conceiving. I knew her when she and her big guy were just starting to date, just taking those first steps into committment. Naturally, I teased the hell out of her.

We both started at VADU the same year. I left the following June, fleeing to higher education. I've had three jobs since. She'd still there. (Believe me, I'm saying that with admiration!)

Time marches on. Eight... or is it nine?... years now and our little boys are making friends.

When they left, we happily picked up the chaos that a three and two-year-old leave in their wake. We love washable crayons and berber carpets, for they let boys be boys. Plastic bins let us toss trucks and Fisher-Price Little People in haphazardly and with ease. In all, it was a whopping five minutes. I've never been a particularly fussy woman when it comes to Gavie. True, I have issues with letting him out in public in mismatched outfits or his favorite but well-worn sweats (never!!), but I've yet to flinch when it comes to messes made in the pursuit of fun.

Growing up, dreaming about families and kids, I never really knew how much I'd love these nights. They aren't exactly the most exciting -- no dancing, no crowds, no late nights. Stumbling in at 3 a.m. was never my way, I don't think I've ever done that. The last time my friends and I went dancing, in fact, I left at midnight and didn't drink a thing beyond a Pepsi. Living the wild life, which according to the media is the way to go for someone of my youth, was never quite my thing. Still, sitting around talking about insurance was not something I ever gave much thought to.

I'm looking forward to doing it again.

We're watching Cars right now. I'm sitting on the couch, and Gavie is bundled under an afghan. He's falling asleep, slowly. Louch that he is, he's fighting it. Like his father, he doesn't seem to require much sleep. In about a half hour, after he's completely out, I'll carry him upstairs and relish holding my baby. He's getting so tall, too soon I won't be able to carry him. Even now it's getting tricky. When I read to him, he's too lanky to hold on my lap. Balancing him and a book no longer happens. Actually, just cuddling on my lap is becoming a challenge because he's all arms and legs.

In pictures he looks older then almost-four. My baby boy now tells me he can do things all by himself. He wants to do everything by himself. "By myself, mom! All by myself!"

We finally got our family portrait taken. It's hanging over the fireplace to the left of the wedding portrait. To the right is Gavie's third birthday portrait. He's standing there with a smile on his face, unguarded. I can see his dad's features in his small face. He's his dad all over again -- though he inherited my nose.

"All by myself," he announces daily. By the minute, it sometimes seems. When he tries to prove that he can do things by himself we often have to run interference between him and a number of everyday household items that almost-four-year-olds aren't quite capable of handling alone. You know, like emptying the Dustbuster. Operating a screwdriver. Putting hand lotion on the cat. (Well, trying to anyway!)

"All by myself." My baby's growing up. It's going to be a heck of a ride, I suspect, whatwith his tendency to have an answer for everything. He may look like his dad, but he sounds like his mom.

Welcome, daughter, home returning

Welcome, daughter.

As I wound my way up the hill, taking that familiar turns with ease, I couldn't help but smile. Little Michelle, who used to be scared of her own shadow, was driving to orientation so that come Saturday, January 6, she could stand before a room of countless strangers and talk about long-dead cultures and political bodies.

One resolution realized: return to Seton Hill to teach.

The phrase that I titled this blog with was the welcoming phrase for alum weekend over a decade ago, when SHU was SHC and the population was "predominantly female." The welcome stuck with me all these years, then came to mind as I made that final turn and Admin came into view.

I felt as if I truly were coming home. The Hill where I spent my post-secondary years was indeed my home, where I came into my own.

I thought of my room Brownlee Hall -- one of the "infamous" triples, where three women were crammed into a space meant for two. I had the loft. That year I was a typist on the Setonian, and I had a won a role in a one-act play. I met boys and men and played an awful lot of pool.

Life on Fourth Admin, short as it was, a learning experience. I'll say no more on those two months save that I learned how to get up, shower, grab some toast and juice, then roll into class in under a half-hour. I became the Setonian's Production Editor and ate too many Eat-n-Park Smiley Cookies.

My one-and-a-half years in Havey Hall, the one with a woman exactly like me but completely different. I drove her crazy with my procrastination, being the antithesis of her organized and proactive self. We had a sink in the room and thought it the lap of luxury. The Setonian became my life as I was named Editor -- so much so that the big guy bet me that I couldn't go a week without talking about it. I think I nearly bit my tongue in half to do it, but I somehow won the bet. The pool table was still a looming figure in my social life, which was easy to understand being that it was in the Havey lounge.

My final year in my then-boyfriend-now-husband's old room: 526 Canevin Hall. My own room, nary a single roommate, but neighbors who made life quite pleasant. Another year as Editor. Peace was made with the former perfectionist roommate, which was easy once we weren't living together. During Senior Week, a number of us women sharked at the bars we went to. Not too many men thought that a bunch of giggly college girls knew which end of the cue to use, let alone how to sink those solids and stripes just so. We got a lot of free food and drinks that week.

I student taught that year, taking over a ninth grade history class where a young girl threw her books out the window, brought in her pet newts in her purse, and set her desk on fire. (No wonder I'm so calm in the classroom when someone tells me she just got out of jail for trying to murder her stepmother. I don't panic. I just ask if she's planning to do that to me.)

Four too-short years for this Setonian girl.

Welcome, daughter. Welcome back to your window seat in third Maura solarium, where you would sit and wait for the big guy to get out of Spanish class. Welcome back to Lowe Dining Hall where your mother-in-law works and where your son is known by everyone there. Welcome to where you learned to define yourself by yourself -- rather then by others' ideals.

Come Saturday I'd be the teacher, standing before the class... not sitting in the ancient wooden paddle desks where Lori carved her love for Blaine. Those desks, by the way, are just about gone. Replaced by tables and cushioned chairs. The few podiums we had are now sleek black ones that house an amazing amount of technology.

Western Cultural Traditions, WCT for short, is no longer a survey course taught to the entire sophmore class at once. The auditorium-style lecture that I remembered has been replaced by small groups. There are no longer different lecturers each week -- just the teacher. That, incidentally, would be me.

Did I ever mention that my first degree was history?

It's a testament to my education at SHC that I am able to walk into a room and teach history for nearly four hours, despite being out of the history classroom for eight years. As I prepared for the class, it all came back to me. Dead kings and ancient maps were as fresh in my memory as they were fourteen years ago when I was sitting in those blasted paddle desks and reading the graffiti'd history of generations of Hill girls. Somehow I retained much more then I thought I had.

It's a testament, too, to that same education that I've been able to make the transition from high school to business college, and now to the university, classroom with little difficulty. You see, Saturday went swimmingly. Over-prepared and quite confident, I managed to hide my nerves and come across (I think!) as if I'd been standing before a room of undergrads for years.

Standing in 228 Maura, in a room that was once tiered and now not, in a room where I watched student government elections and dogged the student reps with questions on accuracy and ethics, I did it. I stood and lectured and oversaw groupwork. I fielded questions without blinking or breaking a sweat. I made them think.

Wow.

Me, doing that. Wow.

One year

One year ago today we buried my Dad, still feeling relief that his suffering was over. I wasn't quite feeling emotions such as sad. How could I? Just three, four, days earlier I was praying for him to die. How could I not? How could I even consider being selfish enough to want him to live just one more day?

So we stood at the gravesite as family tradition dictated. My brother and I were presented with American flags in honor of Dad's service in the Coast Guard. How surreal to hold the perfect triangle and stare out over the grey box before us and see the faces of everyone who mourned with us. My knees felt weak, and for the second time in my life I felt as if they would buckle. The first time was just days earlier when they took his body to the funeral home. And I stood in the door and watched them wheel him away, and I felt the new emptiness of the living room for the first time.

I didn't fall then, nor did I fall this time. I leaned back against my husband and used his strength until my own returned. I don't remember ever crying, just wanting to.

We watched them lower the casket, incapable of leaving until it was completely over. Another family tradition.

Relief has since faded. Am I angry? A little. Resentful? A little. I'm too human not to feel those emotions. But you persevere, you still go on. Wake up each morning, go to work, raise your family, and make new plans for the future. And you forgive. Though I'm not sure who needs to be forgiven. It's not like Dad asked to get cancer. Raging at the fates doesn't do much. They never answer.

What a blessing to have my son.

Captain Chaos and the Eight-Foot Wonder

I plan to make my own Christmas cards this year. I have the stamps, the ink, and the paper. I even have glitter and some fancy-smancy markers to boot. They're going to be lovely red, green, and white creations. A wallet-sized picture of Master Gavie will be featured on the front. It will be wonderful.

First, however, I need to save the cat from the toddler of terror. He's taken it into his head that he needs to save her from herself because she keeps chewing on my Christmas tree, the Eight-Foot Artificial Wonder. She's been gnawing on that thing for years, and she's still alive. I'm not particularly worried about her. I am, however, worried that he'll give both her and me a nervous breakdown with his attempts to protect her as they usually involve shrill scoldings and an attempt to chase her out from under the tree.

(Note to my fellow young mothers: never -- ever -- think you can just pull a three-year-old out from under a tree once he knows you're there. He can take the whole tree with him once his little hands are wrapped around the base. Don't ask, just trust me on this one.)

The inner Martha Stewart will emerge soon after I rescue the cat. Wait, no... sorry. The entire manger population went a.w.o.l. again. The Ghost of Christmas Chaos apparently decided to hide all of them, from Baby Jesus himself to the oxen and the lamb, in the tree. Ever try to find a 1/2" tall statue of an infant in an eight-foot tall, five-foot wide artificial wonder?

(By the way, the tree is also a great hiding place for pacificers, favored toy frogs, and other important items that you can't afford to lose or that your child wants to keep "safe.")

Chistmas simplicity, in the form of cards... excuse me. I have to go find out why the musical ornaments are playing. We hung those a minimum of five feet up on the Eight-Foot Wonder.

Yep, there he is. Gotta love stepstools. (Note to self: hide it in the basement tonight.)

I'm going to make those cards tonight, as soon as I find all of the blue plastic Christmas bulbs. They're gone. Opps, nevermind. They're all on the far left of the tree in one big blue cluster.

"All blue, Mom!" He sounds so proud of himself as I stare at the latest design. "All blue!"

I tell him it's lovely and give him a hug. Our Eight-Foot Wonder -- or at least the bottom three feet -- has been continually re-arranged and re-organized by Captain Chaos from the day we first put it up. The part he can't reach, so long as the stepstool is out of sight anyway, is decorated with the breakable, sentimental ornaments. (I can't wait until Gavie comes home with a felt snowman decorated with Froot Loop buttons, or the little cardboard tree covered in poster paint and sequins that says Merry Christmas in childish handwriting. Those will have places on honor on the Eight-Foot Wonder)

Okay. I think it's time. Let's the creating begin! A red card with white and green accents, some glitter on the snowman. Time for the picture. Damn, I'm good. This looks professional! Martha, eat your little felon's heart out!

"Mom!"

Last week Santa came to "inspect" our Christmas tree and put the rest of the ornaments on it. Since Gavie was such a big help to us, Santa left him a present: Tinkertoys!

"Mommy!"

He comes running in with a handful of the little wooden toys. Apparently he's having trouble getting some of the sticks to connect, or at least that's what I innocently think. He takes my hand and pulls me into the living room to see his handiwork.

The Tinkertoy tin has been emptied of its contents and shoved into the tree. It's roughly four feet of the ground, eye-level with Captain Chaos. It's laying on its side, the open end facing out. The entire nativity set, including a few little froggies, now lives in a Tinkertoy container-turned-treehouse.

(Is "The-Eight-Foot-It's-A-Wonder-It-Hasn't-Fallen-Over-Yet Tree" too long?)

Perfectly browned turkey and pink eyes

The table was resplendent, set with my mother's antique china and my silver. Dinner was served in matching bowls and, when I ran out of those, served bowls and on platters that were from my grandmother's wedding set. My great-grandmother made the crocheted tablecloth. I like the ties to the past, they keep me grounded.

Around the table sat three generations, from the grandbabies to the grandmothers.

Dinner didn't come from the over this year, hours weren't spent slaving over a hot stove. Over a microwave, yes; but a stove, no. My mother-in-law's co-workers, wonderful women that the big guy and I know well from our college years, bought us our dinner from Seton Hill, where she works and we went to college.

La's cancer is gone, but we need six months of chemo since it was beginning to enter her lymph nodes. She's getting a port, just like my father had.

But dinner that night was not focused on cancer. It was about being together, eleven of us surrounding the table, wrangling the children and trying to get them to actually eat something healthy. My mother's companion was with us this year, filling my father's empty chair but certainly not replacing him.

So we survived our first major holiday without Dad. Last Christmas doesn't count, not when he died on the Christmas Eve. This year, I might dryly joke, I'm sober... but last year I was, too. I remember everything, despite probably drinking more in two days then the entire year previous. Then again, six or seven bottles of Zima probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.

(I think it's safe to say that I'm in no danger of becoming an alcoholic, eh?)

One year is creeping up quickly. December 24. My family does have a knack for death and holidays and other special occasions. Dad died only five days short of my mother's mother, almost ten years to the day. Grandpap left us right before Thanksgiving two years ago. My uncle died on my wedding anniversary. Of course, we can also mention my grandfather's minor stroke a week prior to my wedding and my father's diagnosis of bladder cancer two weeks later, but neither of those were fatal.

No wonder I'm so calm when holidays roll around -- so long as we haven't a funeral, I'm counting things a success.

(Did I ever mention my tendency toward irony and sarcasm?)

In all seriousness, Thanksgiving was a success. Dinner was divine, almost as good as the company. Serving dinner to family is indeed a blessing, you know. This year, though we thought about Dad, missing him didn't stop our lives, which is how it should be.

Things did stop this morning though, when I looked at my darling son's face and said, "What's wrong with his eye?"

A tiny bit more on labels...

Interestingly enough, an unplanned coincidence to my previous post, my friend (and author of Love and Ghost Letters) Chantel, just penned a post on nicknames, a whole other sort of label.

Check her writing out at www.yucababy.easyjournal.com; check her writer's site out at www.chantelacevedo.com.

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a LABEL

Well, my kid got labeled. Got an IEP, too, so I'm not too distraught. It's all good, really. Love that educational stuff.

Okay, enough with the tone, as my mother would call it.

The same kid who reads Go, Dog, Go! to me has his very own individualized education plan so that he can learn how to make the right sounds in the right way so that people can actually understand him. He counts to thirteen, spells about a dozen words by memory, and can read most three-to-four-letter words, but can't make an r sound. Or a w. Or, actually, quite a few.He just "drops" those sounds when he speaks.

I can't tell you what the label is because I don't remember. I'm not blocking it out, and I'm not in denial. I just don't think that a label is particularly important since he's simply working on pronounciation. If we were dealing with dyslexia or some other issue of major concern, I'd remember the words. We're dealing with a pronounciation issue, a developmental delay, and that's that.

I won't be the sort of parent who defines her child by his label. That's all. I've known a few parents like that and, frankly, haven't seen many positive things come out of that approach.

Then again, I won't be the parent so determined to prove that a label is only a cluster of words that I end up inadvertently sabatoging his progress.

The approach is this: we do what we need to do in terms of practice at home, we support the team that's working with him, and we stay very, very involved.

We actually wanted a label, believe it or not. While we can teach Gavie how to read, count, find bugs, and jump into a pile of leaves, we haven't much experience in teaching proper pronounciation, not when it comes to teeth and tongue and declension and whatnot. We need the experts, it's that simple.

So don't mind me, the sarcastic cynic, one with an intense dislike for labels in general. I think that, while usually applied with the best of intentions, often end up overshadowing and haunting the person in the long run.

Growing (but no) pains

Something clicked. Poof! Just like that. Then next thing I knew, I realized that I was no longer looking at my workplace with a sentimental eye. Poof!

Yesterday, a spur-of-the-moment visit to Monster-dot-com resulted in a phone call to the 770 area code and a brief conversation, the crux of which was "I'm in Pittsburgh tomorrow, come see me, let's talk."

Now I'm sitting here, in my office, pondering the fact that I may very well not be here much longer.

And you know what? I'm ready.

I don't think I was quite ready in July when I posted "Growing Pains." There was still too much emotional something keeping me in place. Perhaps other emotions are starting to invade and rule. Perhaps it has something to do with December 24 looming over me. Perhaps I'm finally tired of waiting. Whatever it is, I'm welcoming it. It's time to move on. I did outgrow this job; I outgrew it a good bit ago. But outgrowing, apparently, doesn't always mean being grown enough to make the necessary move.

Somehow, since July, I think I got a bit taller.

Inhale, exhale... and once more...

A lot of thoughts can run through your head while you sit in the hospital's waiting room. Why can't they have more recliners? Did anyone ever think of space issues? Can't they do something about the volume on that television?

Those questions are so much easier to angst over then the bigger ones. You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones that demand answers we as humans will never have. It makes no sense to us that a woman who spent her life working and giving would end up on the operating table at 61 while doctors probed and tried to determine whether or not the tumor began as ovarian cancer and moved to the colon or if it just began in the colon. It's beyond us, really, the unfairness of it all. But who are we to question? We can only rage, cry, and accept. Sometimes in that order. Sometimes out of order.

What do you do when you're in that holding area, surrounded by others whose own loved ones are being saved, or lost, at the same time? What do you talk about? And is there an etiquette for hospital waiting room conversations with strangers?

Burying oneself in the mundane is my saving grace on days like that. Took my grade book in and began filling in the lines. Writing out four classes with over 150 names total and filling in five days of attendance can distract anyone. Conversations, when we had them, avoided the obvious. It's far easier to talk about the merits of Verizon versus Cingular then to talk about whether or not we ought to see about a hospital bed in the living room while she recuperates to save her from climbing the steps.

I took my diary with me, but writing in it would have meant talking about my mother-in-law and thinking about how she is so much like a mother to me. I've been calling her "Mum" for eons, long before the big guy and I were even engaged. Writing in that little blank book would have reminded me of too much. I wasn't quite up to remembering at the moment; it seemed to premature, as if talking about the past meant that the future no longer existed. Then again, planning wasn't on my plate, either. Thoughts about home care and chemo were even less welcome.

We've spent so much time in limbo, waiting for this result or that, believing one thing or another that this day left us unable to feel much. Fear and relief had been exchanging places then switching back again for too many weeks to allow any of us to sit there and wallow in any single emotion.

All morning, we watched surgeon after surgeon walk in to tell other waiting folk that their loved ones were well. We, however, were called to the room's reception desk and given directions to a consult room so that the doctor could talk to us privately.

A few posts ago, I mentioned holding one's breath, not breathing, starting to breathe again... I felt as if breathing were a luxury as the four of us sat with the doctor, whom Mum nicknamed "Doogie," and he gave us the news: it's just colon cancer. Even if it's in her lymph nodes, it will only be "stage three." As for the mass in her ovary, it appears non-cancerous, though he's holding out for the final pathology results before he uses more decisive, more permanent, words .

Who would have thought that hearing "just colon cancer" would have brought smiles of relief to our faces?

We're breathing again. All of us.

Mum's getting her own room today if all goes well, and she should be home within 10 days or so. We'll take Gavie to visit her next week once she's settled in and the rest of the tubes are removed. And, we're going to have one hell of a good time reminding her about what she was saying while under the influence of morphine.

It NaNoWriMo time!

November is fast approaching... and that means only one thing!

National Novel Writing Month!

November is the month where writers around the world are encouraged to write, to write, and to write some more. And as for quality? HA! For once, that vulture is sent elsewhere! If you're a part of NaNoWriMo, you get to strangle that bird (perhaps, if I may be so crass, give the bird the bird?) and leave its carcass... well, pretty much wherever you want to so long as you're inspired and you write!

(One time, while still living at home, I killed a nasty-looking spider and left the resulting stain, but not the body itself, on the bedroom wall as a "warning to other spiders." A superstition, I know, but it apparently worked. I never saw another spider of that size again. It has since been painted over. The minute I moved out my room went from "Pepto-Bismol pink" to blah semi-gloss white. But that's another story for another day...)

So, where was I? Oh yes! Just leave quality behind and just WRITE! You can always go back in December and clean it up.

The goal is to pen a 175-page novel, roughly 50,000 words, in just 30 days.


As is my way, I'm leaping in head-first, starting fresh, and seeing where -- and how -- I land!

Wish me luck!
(I'm going to need it!)

Untitled

They lied.
Life lied.
The original CAT scans and the tests lied.

My mother-in-law does indeed have a benign tumor.

But she also has colon cancer. It was discovered the day before her first surgery date.

It's a hard floor to hit when the rug is pulled that abruptly.

Gavie-ese

On my fridge hangs a square of white paper with the words "speech therapy" on them.

Next week we begin the search for a speech therapist so that my son can learn how to pronounce his words clearly, allowing for people other then his parents and aunt to understand him. We put it off, not because we were denying that there might be an issue but because the boys in our family have a tendency to start talking late. The big guy and my brother being two in particular; neither one started speaking until he was three.

Oddly, I'm not devistated about this... as one person already suggested I should be. I just looked at her when she said that, confused; I'm not exactly sure what being devistated will get me. Aside from a headache, that is.

Anyway, his speech delay may simply be, and we're taking an uneducated guess on this one, a result of his being a preemie. We could be wrong. Probably are, in fact. All we know for sure is that it has nothing to do with intelligence. The kid's too wily for that.

This morning we had a minor "crisis" (in his eyes) because I wouldn't pick him up and put him into the wood-framed laundry basket. After three minutes of fussing, he decided to solve the problem on his own: drag it to my bed, climb up on the bed, and slide into the basket.

Too bad I was too fast. I grabbed him mid-slide and popped him back on the floor. Crazy me, I always take such issue with antics that could result in trips to the ER!

The whole reason we're even taking this step now is because he's in pre-school and the teacher admitted that she can't understand a word he's saying. You know, it's easy to forget that others can't quite make out what he's trying to express. We're so used to his sounds that everything makes perfect sense to us.

We do tend to read his mind, too. Shame on us for that one.

I suspect that we sometimes forget that he's perfectly healthy now. There really is a part of me that still sees him in that incubator at Magee with all of those monitors hooked to his tiny body and those big eyes (when he finally got around to opening them) just staring at me, taking it all in and trying to figure it all out.

At his check-up on Friday, the doctor said that he suspected Gavie will hit 6' 1" easily -- a prediction he's making based on the little guy's current rate of growth. Being that Gavie went from a 3T to a 4T within minutes, I'm thinking that the doctor's being conservative in his guess.

My little boy, whose socks once fit my thumb, goes to school now. As I write this, I'm remembering the time he had what was kindly called an "apnea episode" while I held him in the NICU. It was only for a moment, fortunately, just long enough for the monitors to beep... and the start I gave at the sound jerked him back to breathing mode.

I feel like that sometimes: like I'm the one who's not breathing and he's the one jerking me back to reality. If I hold my breath, will time stand still and will he be my little boy for just a little bit longer?

Twice the relief...

It's benign. No cancer, no chemo cocktails, no hospice. We've been granted a reprieve, one like we've never felt before. We can squash the memories of my father's lingering death again, ball them up and tuck them away in the dark corners of our brains. We don't have to apply them to my mother-in-law.

We can pretend that all is well with the world again. I'm very good at that you know.

But, right now, there's no need to pretend. All is indeed well.

For, of almost equal weight -- or so it seems that way! -- is the monumental achievement in the Louch house: Gavie is officially, completely, and totally potty trained!

Wow.

Believe me when I say it: wow.

I never thought that the sight of a three-year-old running for the bathroom would fill me with such delight.

It means a number of things to me, of course. First and foremost: NO MORE DIAPERS TO CHANGE! Secondly, no more diaper bag -- just an emergency bag in the car, just in case of an accident. Thirdly, my little boy is growing up.

He now wants to go potty like Daddy. No more of this diaper stuff, that's for babies! Besides, the diapers don't have neat designs on them like the briefs he now proudly wears!

No cancer and no diapers.

Wow.

Again.

We're waiting right now. In this hellish, familiar limbo of schedules tests and opaque doctors' comments. We're going to treat this as a worst case until we know exactly where the tumor is located. You can't rely on CAT scans for certain details, and a dye test will give us a clearer picture.

This time it's my mother-in-law. Eight months ago we breathed a sigh a relief after Dad's funeral and told ourselves that we could begin to find our way back to normal. To a new normal, anyway. Thursday night ended that return.

It's either ovarian cancer or it isn't. It might just be a fibroid tumor. Whatever it is, it could be benign. Maybe it's not. We don't know yet. Thanks to insurance and doctors and the legal holiday, the test itself isn't even scheduled yet. It will be scheduled tomorrow and done within the next 48 hours. We know that much.

I don't feel like it's real. Surely it's been enough to bury three grandparents and a father in the last three years. Surely Gavie won't lose another beloved grandparent, not so soon after his Pap-Pap left him.

We will, of course, persevere. We're tenacious like that. We'll see her through whatever it is and we'll deal accordingly with the cards we hold. I'm already counting the small blessings: her daughter who's a nurse, having three grown children who can arrange their schedules if needed, our living so close by. I'm already planning, thinking about all of those things that we needed to do with my father's illness.

Like her doctors, I'm treating this as worst-case... for while it seems so surreal, I can't fathom life being so fair as to let it be nothing after all.

You might be a Week III'er...

You May Be A Week III’er
An Ode to all that is Week III
(Special thanks to Scot Leee!)

If you’ve ever looked at a girl in your company and said, “Hey, that’s my sister-in-law”… You may be a Week III’er

If you’ve ever looked at a guy in your company and said, “I think I can take him”… You may be a Week III’er

If your idea of exercise is getting off the couch in the hospitality room to get yourself and two of your friends a beer… You may be (etc.)

If you’ve ever gone on the Woolrich tour and come back with a phone number…

For you old-timers, If you found Joe Hardy’s keynote address exceptionally inspirational…

If you wept openly the day Tag’s closed its doors…

If you love coal…

If you find the food in Wertz dining hall to have a soothing, laxative effect…

If you know what Wendell Hall smells like, in the middle of January…

If you block off the first week of August the day after you leave here…

If you’ve ever snorted beer out your nose…

If you've ever been kicked out of the cage at The Cell Block...

If you want to kill John T., aw, hell, every week wants to kill him…

_______________________________________

Yeah, I know... only a select few get this humor! Let's make this interctive, gang! Send me your comments! Thanks!

Yes, Mentos really do work...

A hodgepodge of thoughts....

We opened Week III with our very own PFEW science experiment: dropping Mentos mints into three two-liters and seeing which soda shot higher into the air.

Diet Pepsi won.

It might have been the mango-colored shirts or maybe it was the fact that we're all crazy enough to think of PFEW as a vacation, but when 24 grown adults, all in their mango polos, stand around and count down to the Mentos explosion, how can you have anything BUT a good week?

For the first time ever, I had a roommate. Alicia and I hit it off well, though I think a few felt that we hit it off too well. It's always easier to have a Chinese Firedrill with two people, you know.

The hospitality suite boasted its usual assortment of beverages, snacks, and games. This year's hit was a game called "Lightening Reaction." For the un-initiated, this game requires four people to hold onto four handles and then wait for the music -- which is screechy enough to make me wonder where the flying monkey are -- to stop. The VERY MOMENT the music stops, you must push the button on the handle. The last person to press the button gets an electrical shock.

The men loved it. The women who played were pretty content to do a few rounds then quit. The men kept playing. And playing. And playing....

And, no, I didn't play. There's something contradictory, oh gentlemen who mocked me, about your ragging on me mere seconds before you get shocked... and then you release the handle so abruptly that it sails across the table. Telling me that I'm a chicken while you wait for the feeling to return to your hand just doesn't really do much for me in terms of encouragement.

The 418 (or so) teens that came and stayed were amazing. They really were some of the best the state has to offer; they are the sort that make me think that teaching high school again might not be that bad. The 17 that I was a Company Advisor for were a dream. Once the company got itself underway, there was little actual guiding that I needed to do. That means, of course, that they chose well when they elected their CEO. They were a well-organized group, experiencing the usual bumps that 17 strangers run into. Nothing earth-shattering.

What else?

Everything. Nothing. A million memories, a dozen practical jokes, and a few promises of revenge.

It was discovered that a single Mentos in a 20 oz. Pepsi results in the normally reserved Frank running for his life.

(I would have caught him if I hadn't paused to kick off my sandals.)

New company advisors were put through the usual paces. I think they're coming back next year anyway.

Wednesday brough the annual tour of Woolrich's plant. Watching the wool turn into fabric is always fascinating, in my opinion. Seriously! It's the little kid in me, I think. Watching all of those big machines... coolness, dude. The adult in me never gets tired of it, either, because each time I go I end up talking to the second guide, the one who follows our group, and we have some amazingly interesting conversations -- all of them about fabric!

The students seem to enjoy it as well, particularly once we reach the weaving floor. It was hot that day (there's an understatement!) -- so hot that some of us were grabbing bottles of water out of the coolers and leaving our arms in the icy water as long as possible. I discovered that an ice-cold bottle of water on the back of the neck does the trick, particularly when you're riding on a school bus.

Ah, the things you learn!

I think that the most amazing thing about PFEW is the amount of dedication and the amount of volunteerism that we see. Everyone of us volunteers are exactly that: volunteers. We take our vacation time, our family time, and our own money, and head to Williamsport for eight days where we listen to the same training, the same speakers, and the same everything... it's really a recipe for disasterous boredom if you think about it. Yet, I think I can safely say, not one of us finds the week tedious.

Volunteerism itself is a bizarre concept -- think about it: you ask people to give up time and money for total strangers who may or may not thank you and may even give you grief over your goodwill. Then you add PFEW.

We stand there and tell these parents to trust us, that we aren't nearly as simple as we may act. We tell these parents that we're going to teach their children about free enterprise and how to compete and that there will be losers just as there are winners. We go against the popular theory that everyone's a winner. We toss those kids into groups with 16 or 17 strangers and tell them to form a company -- and then make them elect a CEO after knowing each other for barely 24 hours. Then, the very adults who promise to teach, hand it all over to the CEO and his/her team. We sit back and let the kids figure it out on their own, offering guidance only when needed, and then often in private so that the CEO maintains power in the eyes of the others. If we, the CAs, do everything right, it looks like we're sitting in the corner doing nothing. How's that for volunteerism and teaching?

*laughing* It's the best out there. Those kids come in on Sunday and leave on Saturday and, somewhere in there, most of them grow, even just a little bit. They find voices, they discover interests, and they make friends they'd never know otherwise. The person that each one was that Sunday is no longer there, exact and unchanged. It's an experience that no traditional classroom can offer. Watching some of them come into their own in just a week's time... wow.

Maybe that's why we CAs come back each year. Must be.

(Then again, that grilled cheese is pretty damn good...)

Homeward bound... in the opposite direction...

At 2:30 Friday I shot out the door and hit the pavement. By 3:30 I was past Monroeville and pulling into the Murraysville Sheetz for a some portable food. Two hot dogs, a bag of pretzels, and a large Pepsi later, I was on my way again. My only rule for food when I travel is that I can eat it whle I drive. Fast food obviously fits the bill. But, as Sheetz likes to point out, its food is "good food, fast." I think.

Anyway, it's been two years since I last drove this route, and the changes were amazing. The construction I suffered through in years past was completed in many places and made the ride as easy as could be. At that hour, I was one of the few cars on the road, meaning that I could max the speed limit and not have to fuss about slow drivers.

Route 80 was so empty that I was on cruise control for about 40 miles. That's a dangerous thing: it's always tempting to take my hands off the wheel for some reason.

By the time I landed in Williamsport, I was in high spirits -- so much so that I forgave the yutz who cut me off and denied me the opportunity to exit where I was supposed to exit, thus forcing me to head down the road a few more miles and get the next off-ramp. I knew where I was so it was no big deal.

I checked in, made it to my room, unpacked only what I had to unpack, then hightailed it to the hospitality suite.

Empty.

The crew was, apparently, still golfing. No problem. I went back to my room and actually conquered some work. When I made it down there an hour or so later...

How good it was to be back. How good it was to see old friends. How hard it was not to cry. I'll only get sentimental once, I promise. And this is that once.

Coming back to PFEW is, to me, one of my last steps back into the life I had before Dad stopped his chemo and decided that quality of life was his goal, not quantity. My world stopped then, as you know. It started to move again a year later when he passed away, but I wasn't the woman I had been, and finding out just who I am has been quite a journey.

So seeing these men and women, being hugged and welcomed back as if I'd only seen them yesterday, was healing in some fashion. I felt like I was home again.

There. Sentimentality...

...promptly cured with a few good remarks, the re-discovery of our "Where's Weenie" book, and promises from Chuck better left off the printed page.

103 weeks since, only days to go! PFEW, here I come!

While it's easy to go on about toddlers and ice cream, defining one's career, and even the comforting sameness of relationships, talking about today's topic has left me at a loss from day one.

How does one even begin to talk about a blink in time, where one is working her tail off, using one of her two precious vacation weeks per year, and spending the bulk of each day with a score of teenagers she's never met before?

How can I even start to explain the fact that, come Friday night, I'll be in a hotel hospitality suite greeting men and women I haven't seen since 2004... and it will be like I saw them yesterday?

I'm not sure it's possible, but I'm going to give it the old college try. ______________________________

This post was originally title "Payback," because that's what this whole odyssey began as: a chance to return a favor.
_______________________________

Once upon a time, as I mentioned once before, I was so shy that being called on to answer in class was agony. If the yearbook category existed, I would have been voted "Most Likey to Blush Herself to Death." (A bit un-weildy a title, though. Don't you think?)

But through two grand adventures, I found my voice and -- as many of you in Week III will say -- haven't stopped using it since.

One was the combined experience of college and The Setonian.
The other was Junior Achivement (JA).

JA was my first opportunity to be exactly what, exactly who, I wanted to be. The tenactious reporter and editor that I became in college emerged while I was sanding the raw edges of aluminum cookie sheets, bending metal rods into coat hangers, boxing Swedish fish, and running around trying to get my production crew to actually produce.

I didn't blush much at the JA meetings, I was too busy shouting at people to quit playing poker and start putting decals on the t-shirts.

Someone must have realized that I was more then bluster, because the second year there I found myself on a bus with roughly 20 other teens, barreling toward Bloomington, Indiana, for a seven-day leadership conference or something like that. It was the National Junior Achievement Conference (NAJAC), which welcomed roughly 1,000 teenages from around the nation. We were there to learn about business and leadership, to compete on a national level for titles we held regionally, and to see that there was more to the world then our hometowns.

To sixteen-year-old me, though, it was a chance to pretend to be cool. Leadership, back then, was easy enough: you simply had to look like you knew which end of the glue gun to use (we were making Christmas wreaths that year). Oh, yeah, and you had to be able to out-shout the others. As for business, well, I was going to be an English teacher! Who needs Drucker when you have Wordsworth?

I wasn't much more mature then the others who went, particularly on the bus; I was too much the teenager. What became known as "The Teddy Graham Incident" lived on for at least three years... and when the self-appointed 17-year-old chaperone discovered that his flashlight was missing, I was the first one he blamed... not that he could find it to prove that it was me!

(I was guilty, by the way. He kept shining it in people's faces. It needed to vanish.)

At NAJAC I made some of the best friends I will ever be fortunate enough to have. Some of them are reading this now, in fact. It doesn't matter that we haven't seen each other in years. There's a bond that wrinkles time and distance into nothing more then small inconvenient details. Time is relative. It was only last week that the 24 of us, myself and 23 people from everywhere but my hometown, sat under a tree and talked about what we did well. For many of us, that was a very foreign experience. Just three days ago, or so it seems, we listened to Dave Thomas talk about his life and what it was like to open his first restaurant. And last night we went to the President's Ball dressed in the finest clothing we owned and celebrated a week survived.

The speakers, both motivational and business-oriented, gave me topics to think about... ones I now use in my management classes at ICM, incidentally.

Two years later, I boarded the bus for the same trip for the third time. This time I was the official chaperone, the only college student on the bus, responsible for 20 teens that I only sort of knew. I'd learned, by then, that shouting wasn't leadership, and -- without flashlight :) -- managed to keep everyone intact for the entire trip to and from.

I went that third year and entered the talent show with intentions to solo. I made it to the final round before being cut. I had finished my years with JA by earning the region's top awards in entrepreneurship and production. I had scholarships. I had my voice.

And now, next week.

For the last seven years, I've been attending Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week, a.k.a. PFEW, as a volunteer, working with teachers and students -- ostensibly to help them learn about free enterprise.

As the "Company Advisor," I get to work with "my" kids from Sunday afternoon to Friday night, taking them from a group of total strangers to, ideally, a cohesive team. We begin with Junk Night, where they make a product and commercial from broken toasters and old lawn chairs, literally from junk! And they do it all in about 45 minutes. It's here were we begin to see leaders emerge, where the ones who were quiet all day come up with fantastic ideas that win awards and bragging rights.

Monday brings the rules of the game -- how to play the computer simulation and how to create an advertising campaign. It's a grueling days filled with pages of notes and rules that seem to make little sense.

BizSim? They think to themselves or wail aloud. We're going to play twelve business quarters? What the heck is R & D? How does that impact my sales? If I want to be a price leader in my industy do I need to pump up my quality budget? What demographic group do we want to target with our ad campaign and how should we explain that in Friday's presentation to the stockholders? How are we going to get this all done by Friday morning?

And who is this adult who keeps answering our questions with questions?!

The kids have that "deer in the headlights" look for a while on Monday, but it vanishes after the first or second round of the simulation. By then, too, they have a CEO and other officers to help lead.

Come Tuesday morning, they're dividing themselves up and beginning to run their own business -- some do the simulation, others do the advertising. By Wednesday, we company advisors begin to become superfluous...

Saying that I do this each year to help students find their voices as I found mine sounds cliched and trite. It's true, believe me, but I have this feeling that I'm still getting more out of it then the students.

I'm leaving on Friday at, ideally, 2:05 p.m. Since I'm taking my trusty laptop, I'm going to challenge myself to blog the days to see if I can't give you a taste of Week III at Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week.

PFEW, here I come!

Truck fruit snacks!

So we're still working on this potty training thing. Gavie gets a little bag of fruit snacks each time he goes potty by himself. (I know, I know: all that sugar!)

My kid eats like all of two out of each bag. The rest are doled out to Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Na. I get the red, Daddy gets the blue, and Na gets the orange. Gavie eats the green. Yellow fruit snacks are tricky because sometimes they're for Pap-Pap. We usually tell him to eat the yellow for Pap, and he does.

The other day he did the deed and ran out to me, yelling excitedly: "Truck fruit snacks! Truck fruit snacks!" I'd just answered the phone and wasn't moving fast enough, so he ran over to Daddy. "Truck fruit snacks! Truck fruit snacks!"

Erik, who just walked in and didn't know about Gavie's accomplishment, told him that he had to go potty first. Nonplussed, my problem-solving boy did what only made sense to him... get the potty and provide the necessary evidence.

Picture this, dear readers: my study little three-year-old running into the powder room and coming back out, pushing his little blue and yellow potty before him.

Now picture this: two grown adults leaping up to stop him before the contents went everywhere.

Growing pains

A question from a former prof about a week ago Friday has my brain aching. Paired with a too-true remark about my current career, I think my brain is about to implode.

When I started at my current place of employ, I was reeling from three years in a private high school. It hadn't been a difficult place to work; I had a few good friends there and a principal I trusted. It was just... well, I'm a good high school teacher but, I think, a better college teacher. In general, I seem to have a better rapport with the over-18 set.

Anyway, in the last three years, I've regained that confidence and then some. Students tell me that they ask for my classes, that I'm one of the few that control the criminal justice students. They come in to class and tell me how what we did in management class related to something in their workplace. They bring in letters and resumes for me to help them edit. There's a need that goes beyond academic: many of them lack basic skills so many of us take for granted.

Classes sometimes turn into coaching sessions where we talk about what to do when a boss is unprofessional or when a co-worker is pushing for a fight. We'll discuss what to do in interviews and how to be ethical at work without feeling as if they're selling out or going against the world they grew up in.

It wasn't all giving. I took a lot too. So many students asked how things were going, didn't complain when I was too emotionally scattered to remember to even bring my board markers to class -- five days in a row. I think I lost more markers in that time then I've used in the last ten years. I only cried in class once, when a student gave a speech about his mother dying from cancer.

Even now, with Dad gone and students who didn't know me while he was dying, they still give and I still take. My classroom evaluation last Wednesday was spectacular because they wanted to help me, so while my supervisor sat and watched, they were perfect. On-task. Focused. Interested. The women who are old enough to be my mother tease me about having a second child someday; those who are my contemporaries compare notes with me on child-rearing. The men, of all ages, are generally respectful -- or smart enough to keep silent. Word has it that I won't allow anyone to swear, let alone make remarks of questionable taste. Enough of the male population has heard my "creating an uncomfortable environment" speech, I guess. It's long, drawn-out, and scary. Once you hear it, you never want to hear it again.

I haven't gone nose-to-nose with a student in years. Haven't had to kick anyone out either. I'm settled, organized, comfortable.

Too comfortable, I fear.

So what do I want? To write, to learn, to design, to present... to be everything.

In first grade, I had a list of things I would be when I grew up: an artist, a ballarina, an actress, a teacher, a writer, a singer... the world really was my oyster, and I was smart enough to know that I could do anything.

Somewhere along the way, I learned the wrong lessons and discarded the optomism for what I thought was a better reality. Thank God for college dorm life. It cracked, then shattered, the fishbowl I grew up in.

Little Miss Doesn't-Have-A-Voice ended up running the campus newspaper and making it number one in the nation. Twice. The same girl who turned red each time her grade school teachers asked her to answer a homework question regularly interviewed the college president, dogging her on the school budget. In my senior year, we took on the student council as well, questioning voting procedures and the incumbents' integrity. Our stories were so tightly written that the underground rag found little to pick apart, only hammering us once on a date rape article that was, admittedly, "unfocused." Our paper went from eight pages to twelve and two-page spreads were normal. My staff was incredible: without them, The Setonian would have been nothing but birdcage liner.

I met people from other fishbowls and bigger aquariums... and learned that dreaming really was okay again.

So what happened in those ten years since graduation? Don't say marriage, that's absurd. Erik gives me so much leeway that it's astounding. He sent me back to college for an English degree, racking up more debt, when we were living in a tiny rental house and buying generic everything. Our house was furnished in what I call "early hand-me-down." Aside from our bed and tv, we bought nothing. I could have been working somewhere and paying down our credit cards, but instead I was sitting in a classroom demystifying Hamlet and critiquing Wordsworth. Even now, when I'm talking about my Ph.D. in two years, he says "go for it."

Tonight I'm up here on-line. I just finished another entry for Killing Julie, www.mkilou.easyjournal.com, and am trying to finish this blog. There's laundry to be folded and our living room probably needs a dusting, but he's not worried. He told me to go ahead and write, then picked up Gavie's toys then settled down with the book he's been reading. Tomorrow night he's taking the little one out for new shoes. When I come home from physical therarpy (screwed up my shoulder), I'll have the house to myself and will be able to take care of whatever chores demand immediate attention... and then turn my attention to this PartyLite business.

My first party is next Sunday. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking when I signed up. Probably something about new furniture for my formal living room (which has nothing but a couch and a piano, both hand-me-downs). Anyway, I'll do what I can. I've no intention of making this into a career, believe me. It's all about short-term financial gain to feed my materialistic nature. If I do one or two shows a month, I'm happy. And, if PartyLite's dissatisfied with that, c'est la vie. It's not a job I plan to stress over.

(I wonder if PartyLite will fire me for being an underachiever? That might be an accomplishment in itself. Can you be fired from a pyramid scheme?)

Anyway, Erik gives me more then enough room to grow. I've been in no-man's-land with my life (willingly) on hold for so long that, even though it's six months since, I still feel like I'm waking up from a long sleep. Dreams? What are those? Am I allowed to think like that again? I am. Really! How amazing... don't you think? To actually be able to look into the future without "before" and "after" in the sentences, without time being divided by a black dress and a grey casket.