Meet me on the equinox.

Or, in this case, a few days after it.

There are so many things to say about this weekend--glee at a successful conference presentation, joy and gratitude at the wedding of a dear friend, the warm glow that comes from being in the right place in my life--but for now, I'll start with this.



My state is beautiful.

"Failing and Flying" --Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Loving teaching.

After an exhausting day at school today, I was carrying my tired self and many bags of homework to the parking lot when I spotted a few of my students. At first, I figured that it would be "uncool" for their teacher to say hi...then I figured, hell with it, and called out a hello.

"Hey, Ms. A!"
Some fussing in the group.
"Hey, don't I have your class tomorrow?"
"Yeah, you do!"
"See! Told you I did! Are you gonna be there? If you're not there I'm not going!"

Aww. They do like me. And I like them back--there's definitely a sense of "those are my kids!" developing along with the overwhelming sleepiness. Teachers have such early bedtimes.

Hum.

Today was a sprint day--that's not terribly unusual, one of those usually comes every week. I run at a middle school a few blocks from my house: there aren't many kids hanging around the building after school, so I can train without worrying about my students coming over to visit.

The street runs parallel to the part of the field I run on, so occasionally there will be another jogger or a dogwalker, a family out for a stroll, or other similar company. Today, there were a few people like that, but one unusual visitor in particular.

A car paused at the stop sign just before the school as I finished one leg of sprinting and jogged back to the start. I thought it was a little weird that this car hadn't moved from the corner, but wrote it off as a lost driver. Reaching my start cone, I stopped, pivoted, and took off for another sprint.

Now, it may have been that the driver suddenly realized where he was and continued on his way past the school...but I'm going to choose to believe that he wanted to race me instead. (He won. Oh well.)

Just another instance of the universe sending just what's needed.

This has been making the rounds on many blogs I read or am considering reading, and I love it enough to take it for my own.

Beautiful day for a walk.

After a week of century-plus heat indices, last night's rainstorms brought things down to a brisk 90 degrees or so. It was perfect for running errands: little brother and I picked up food supplies for the fields tomorrow. (I even ordered everything in Spanish!)

I found some time to explore this new place called home, too. Collegetown is very familiar to me, since I came of age there, but I have no idea what to do in my own hometown as a grownup. When are the best nights to go out? What's the best coffee shop? Which bookstores have the coolest recommendations? Where can I find some knitting buddies? These are pressing questions.

What a perfectly portentious portal.

I passed this school on my walk today, after three glasses of perfectly cold iced tea and perfectly lovely conversation in a local cafe. They say red doors are lucky...having them on a school seems appropriately hopeful. The rest of the neighborhood was beautiful, old houses with lots of charm and varying amounts of upkeep, mainly divided into apartments or rental units. I'd always figured on saving my money instead of "throwing it down the drain" of rent, but walking by places like these (whose property values are astronomical, I'm sure), I start getting mightily tempted to drain a little cash. Very soon, I'll have a job to support the place I live and the style I choose...within reason, sure, but if having an apartment on a beautiful street is a priority, I'll spend accordingly.

Family vacation and...

HARRY POTTER LAND.

I may be well past my teenybopper phase and imaginary love affair with Draco Malfoy*, but I was still downright giddy as we walked into the new Harry Potter section in Universal's theme park. My brothers and I kept finding more cool things to see and do...usually signaled by small shrieks (on my part) or laughter (on theirs).



It's fun to be a kid sometimes. The books have merits of their own beyond being a good story, but my brother pointed out that's what brought all of us together that day: a good story, crossing oceans and ages and cultures, and the desire to see it all come true.

Plus, it's HARRY POTTER. It's fun. I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter to come...someday.

*Or, you know, not. A girl can dream.

New missions.

Along with moving back into my bedroom at my parents' house (the wiser choice during unpaid-but-you-can-still-pay-us-tuition student teaching semester), I'd like to work on one other thing:

How to be alone.

I'm decent at it in short stretches, days or so, mostly because I'm great at keeping myself entertained. Cleaning, reading, basking in the sun, working out with only my earbuds for company--these are things I'm pretty good at doing alone. What I'm worse at is keeping alone from transitioning into lonely.

Being alone and quiet gives me space to process the world; being alone and loud reminds me that I know how to amuse myself! Halfway through one of my last car trips, an Alanis CD found its way into my stereo, and I sang myself hoarse the rest of the way home. Having fun by myself is important, I think, if only to remember how much I like my own company, and that person, instead of anyone else I might be asked to become.

I need to pick this up again (again).

It's a good place to record things I want to remember!--like the potentially-disastrous-but-hilarious soccer game today.

Background details: every Sunday, the entire family packs up and heads out to the soccer fields Dad owns with two other business partners. Mom and the brothers work the concession stand, while Dad assigns and oversees the games (and especially the referees). I'm happiest refereeing.

Just this session, we signed our first women's teams. They're still learning, but they're having fun. Today was their first rain game. First, we had a lightning delay...then the clouds came closer...then they poured. When I finally blew the whistle to begin, the rain had calmed to a drizzle, but it picked up again a few minutes into the half.

A game like that can easily be a miserable time: players can lose their heads, slide recklessly, get angry, and get hurt. The officials don't have an easier time of it, either. If the game is slow, you're cold; if it's fast, there's a danger of slipping and injuring your pride or your legs. These girls kept their heads, though, and had fun with the rain--so I did the same.

There's nothing quite like seeing someone's abuela intercept a breakaway or jump over a slide tackle.

Notes from the other side.

Vagina Monologues weekend has come and gone. It's always a crazy, busy, wild, energizing, liberating experience, but this year was especially so in every way.

Exactly which monologue I was doing and exactly what I was wearing to perform it drifted to the background until perhaps two minutes before I went onstage. I had been lounging around all day in, essentially, my underwear--a bustier and stockings fitting of "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy"--but in a few more seconds, I would be in that underwear in front of a crowd of hundreds, if not a thousand or more. Whoa boy.

I took my deep breaths, did some stretching, and reminded myself of what I wrote in a letter at the beginning of the entire VDay 2010 process: Go big or go home.

One more breath, the lights went out, the audience cheered, and I went big.

At the same time that I was in the moment, I was able to watch the moment, detached, just thinking, This is your senior year. You made it. Who'd have thought? And then, a simple (slightly wicked): Enjoy it.

Did I ever.

I'm still riding some sort of strange, big high today, several days post-show, and can't quite figure out why. Maybe I've crossed some thick line of liberation this time, one I can't find my way back over, and will be forever condemned to speak my mind without a blush, a shudder, or an apology. At least, I hope so.

It's still Saturday in here...

David Mead -- Sleeping in Saturday

Sleeping in Saturday
Lazy winter sun
Creeping in through the blinds
Darling, let it come

So nice to see you again
Feels like a long time, but then
We'll pick up where we left off again.

Perfect day-before-Valentine's music on that aforementioned lazy winter day. It's even sunny out today.

I love my work.

Love, love, love it.

Yesterday, I:

*Chatted, joked, and taken an Italian test with a lovely lady and her personal assistant, fulfilling my responsibilities as a proctor. She told me our university has a power soccer team--how cool is that?
*Investigated the vagaries of APA style with a writer on her first research paper at the tutoring center.
*Assisted with homework and set up a personal work calendar for a brilliant younger gentleman (who just needs a guide to consult sometimes as he finds his own way through middle school).

I have the best jobs in the world, I am totally convinced. Great that all of these are teaching-related, too; after a depressing reading for class on Monday, I was really anxious about my career choice! Fifty percent of new teachers leave education within five years. Most of them cite frustration, underappreciation, and very low pay when compared with peers who had the same amount of training. I'll admit that I worry about my classroom becoming a box; I want to teach, I love teaching, but I take very poorly to low status and stagnation. Yesterday was just what I needed after that reading: reassurance that it isn't stagnant, that teaching changes every day, and it is a career you can excel in. (One of my bosses offered me a new position--essentially a promotion--completely out of the blue! Hard work gets rewarded...just gotta keep that in mind.)

Another reading from the depressing book is due Monday...better bookmark this entry and come back to then!

Coming back.

It's been a while, but I really do need to stay in this habit. Maybe with the backlog of cool things that have happened in the past few weeks, I'll be able to keep updating regularly? Fingers are crossed. I want to take this project to a year. Call it my New Year's Resolution, only a month late. (better late than never, right?)

So, that makes item no. 1 on the resolution list; other items include:

1. Write.
2. Read--for pleasure, not just for courses.
3. Keep balanced between school, work, play, and soccer.
4. Spend time with friends in my final semester.
5. Attend two Spinning classes every week. (Related: find gym in hometown.)
6. Give people the benefit of the doubt.
7. Start going to church regularly again, and investigate the faith on my own.
8. Maintain a Sunday brunch date.
9. Gradually work up in soccer, and be okay with going slow. There's kind of a lot on my plate.
10. Choose happiness.

New haunts around town!

Just got back from a lovely evening with my friend J. at the local speakeasy. This is surprisingly appropriate--I call him Jazz, and he calls me Esme. It's a weird inside thing--and absolutely perfect for a rainy Saturday night with little work to do and plenty of conversation to have.

The best part? Observing the other groups at tables and the bar, and decoding from their body language what the story was.

"That guy?" Jazz nodded at one point to a patron around our age, sitting the next table over. "He's involved with the girl. Has been for a long time. The boyfriend knows. See how he's sitting very close to her, but not interacting with her?...while the one across is smiling too much, holding his head too high, and can't take his eyes off her?"

Very fun, relaxing way to spend the night...but for now, bed.

Short tonight.

I passed! And made it back to the apartment safely.

Unpacking is another issue...still loads to do, but I'm about ready to call it a night. More tomorrow.

Nerves, nerves nerves nerves.

Think good thoughts for me: tomorrow I have two soccer games right before I head back to Collegetown for my last semester. If they were just games, there would be no nerves at all!...but the second of the set is being assessed, which means I'm under more pressure than usual to not screw up.

Word on the street is that I'll pass--I know my stuff. I've kept up with my training (running and bookwork), this isn't a new age group, I know how to sense the mood of a game and adjust accordingly, and I am qualified to do this. (That my hopes of advancing will be delayed three years if I fail this observation really don't have bearing on anything. Really. None.)

If I can shut out the stress and make the first call of each half a good one, I think I'm gonna be okay. I just have to remember: decisive whistles! Touch the far sidelines and the top of the 18 at least a few times each half, whether they need it or not! Call the first foul! Watch for retaliation! Keep good eye contact with my assistants! Have a good pregame! Give the card if the game needs it! Use F-I-R-E and S-I-A-P-O-A and the four D's and the three P's!*

...Wish me luck!

*Frustration, Intimidation, Retaliation or Establishment of space--the four reasons an elbow becomes cardable. Speed of play & of the attack, Intent of tackler, Aggression, Position of tackler, Opportunity to play the ball, and Atmosphere of game--the six criteria to use in determining whether a slide tackle is fair play, foul play, serious foul play, or even violent conduct. Distance from goal, distance from ball, defenders between attacker and goal, and direction play is heading--used to determine whether or not there's been a denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity (DOGSO) and reason for a send-off. Personal, Public, Provocative?--if it was any of the three, then that dissent was worthy of a caution (visual as well as verbal). Probably the most informative footnote written so far on this blog. Whew.

Finished!

You can't see the whole thing, but this scarf just about hits my waist--perfect length for a man-scarf. (Wrapped it up just in time, too, as our belated holiday-slash-anniversary-dinner-and-gift-exchange is in, oh, about half an hour.) Fun fact: I'm actually on the phone with A. in this picture, and he has no idea what I'm doing.

"You sound distracted. You OK?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm good, just, you know, work."

Work. Heheh. If taking goofy pictures of myself with my knitting counts as work.

I'm learning so much from my job...

I swear, once I finish this internship, I need to go on Jeopardy. The last few articles I've written have been treasure troves of general and not-so-general information, including but not limited to:

*Slavery in Midwestern states
*World War II performers (Irving Berlin, Elsie Janis...)
*Plasma rocket propulsion
*Pocket x-ray machines
*Hybrid cars that plug into the power grid, and make you part of that grid
*How batteries work
*How supercapacitors work (they're the future of batteries)
*The difference between specific and innate immune systems

When I work on this stuff, I end up feeling ultra-informed, as well as ultra-productive. Will hopefully provide enough motivation to finish the last transcript and article I have--if I do that, when I get back from break, all I have to do is edit some video, do one more interview, and relax a bit for a few weeks. (Maybe.)

What does it mean to be a man?

Interesting question, with interesting possible answers.

The VDay Movement apparently just started posting columns from guest writers in the "V-Men" section. I think that's important and significant in itself--to stop violence against women, against anyone, we've got to have both men and women involved--but the column itself brings up good questions.

There's growing awareness that it's tough to be a girl: that we're hit with a slew of contradictions that we're supposed to be (strong/skinny, independent/taken care of, assertive/demure) and yet somehow avoid at the same time (tomboy/girlie girl, madonna/whore). This is good. Girls deserve to carve out their own selves, and understand that there are a lot of people trying to tell them what they should be.

Where this thought goes wrong is when it villainizes, when it casts the girls as victims and the rest of society as heartless, diabolical, hellbent on stuffing females into passive poses for its own maintenance of power. It's a social paradigm. People who put little girls in dresses don't do it to keep them down--they do it because that's what everyone does, and because it's a pretty dress. There are some implications to that dress, and to gendering a kid one way or the other, but honestly? I'll put my daughter in a dress someday and then tell her "go on, honey. get the soccer ball and let's play."

This gendering and confusion doesn't only go one way, either. A. and I talk about what it means to be a man--and a traditional one, he ain't (thank goodness). I'm not exactly a princess in a tower, and I'm not looking for a white knight! But so many men think they need to be precisely that--the ideal--without realizing that inherent in "ideal" is also "impossible".

Gender: it tends to be a sticky subject for just about everyone who actively thinks about it. Hoping to follow this column and see what light it can shed.

Shamelessly linking to my friends' blogs.

L. always hooks me up with the best things--honestly, really, the best things! Twilight soundtrack (can you say 'guilty pleasure')? Check. GMH blog? Check. The secret to the best cherry-limeades ever? Check. Good thoughts for the new year? Check again.

Photo courtesy of L.W. (rosegiver @ tumblr.com)

I haven't yet sat down and figured out what my New Year's resolutions will be, but need to one of these afternoons soon. Even on break, work has a way of chasing me down--I've been studying furiously for the upcoming pro clinic and futsal regionals/nationals, as things heat up on the refereeing front...but other obligations haven't let go, either, as I work on articles, transcripts, future research, scholarship applications, the list goes on.

Those things are important, but so is taking time to breathe, smooth out the wrinkles of last year, and refocus for the months to come. Looking forward to that.

Copied from nearly everywhere on my friend list.

GivesMeHope

YES. YES. YES.

It's really easy to say "oh, f...orget my life, FML" when something goes wrong--this is the counter-site to the gripe-fest of the FML blog.

An example: earlier today, I was muttering to myself as I cleaned out the family freezer, griping to my father about the huge, unhealthy amounts of food my mom buys, then forgets about. He listened for a few minutes, agreeing somewhat, but eventually looked me in the eye and said, "You know, your mother buys all that food for you guys."

Point taken. Though there may be "my family makes me crazy, FML" buried in that moment, there's also a touch of "my family really loves me, and that GMH."