30 Poems

I never did write a good poem.  When I was in fourth grade, I got into a haiku phase, and wrote a notebook full of them.  My beloved Mrs. Johnson inked red praise in every margin.
In college, I finally took a poetry writing class with David Clewell, our poet, and fine teacher.  I had gotten [...]

Read Full Post »

Draft/timeline

E. cannot sit still.  He cannot stay quiet.  After my first two hours teaching him, I was sure he had some form of verbal and physical Tourette’s.  Some stimulus (which I’m unable to predict mostly) will send him leaping from his seat, across the room, or table shaking, or in and out of closet darting.
He [...]

Read Full Post »

Small thankful

I’ve been traveling a lot, and have a terrible sore throat, and am Monday-of-Progress Reports tired.  But, I wanted to say that I am thankful, because today the kids gave me goosebumps again.
We’ve begun reading the scene between Hermia, Lysander, and Helena. Lysander and Hermia first talk about their love, and needing to leave the [...]

Read Full Post »

School days

I went from worrying that I wouldn’t have a job at all, to teaching full time and returning to the mad-dash schedule of teaching.  Early to bed, early to rise, extra time given to finding amazing short stories and grading raggedy notebooks full of poems and protestations (“Miss, why did you move my seat today…).
It’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Oh, Joseph K.

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on physicality in Kafak– and read, for a sweaty, corner-cramped year, all of his works.  (Except for _Amerika_. I’m saving that.)  Oh, the bureaucracy in Kafka, the endless hallways, forms, doorways, misdirections, and missed directions his narrators have to endure.
Today was a Kafka day for me.
There is a “hiring freeze” [...]

Read Full Post »

the Royal Trees of Riverside Park

Yesterday, I babysat Louisa, one of the little girls from my Sunday school class–I’ve been teaching her in Sunday school for three years now, since she was three. I babysit only occasionally, when my work schedule allows.
We did lots and lots and lots, but in the afternoon, she wanted to play soccer in Riverside Park. [...]

Read Full Post »

Hagia

St. Lucy, outside of an elementary parish school in the Bronx.  Interestingly, she has her eyes here; often, she’s shown holding her own eyes on a platter, referring to her martyrdom.

St. Francis of Assissi, across the doorway from St. Lucy.  I’m not sure why they’re flanking the same entrance, as Clare is the bosom friend [...]

Read Full Post »

Kiddos wear a woman out!

This week, I’m doing my drama camp for neighborhood kids at the church where I teach Sunday school.  Last year, I described it in the “death of a pigeon” post.
Today was the first day, and I had clean forgotten how tiring it is to teach/lead children. They have so much energy!  They talk constantly!  They [...]

Read Full Post »

Verdancy

I read _Schooling_ by Heather McGowan last week– it’s written in a very Joycean stream-of-conscious, no use of quotation marks, shifting point of view style. A young American girl is at boarding school in England; the story covers her immersion into the school, her grief over her mother’s death, her strange (inappropriate?) relationship with a [...]

Read Full Post »

Find a penny, take a penny

I always pick up pennies.  I can find three or four a day, sometimes.  And often a nickel or dime.  I feel lucky, and I also feel pleased to myself: over the course of a year, I’ll bet I find nearly five dollars in change on the ground.  It’s like a free five dollar bill!
Here [...]

Read Full Post »