Three-toed, Tree, or Ground

One of my peers recently said I was a live wire, very bouncy, and on the ball. Ha! If they only knew. Of the seven deadly sins, sloth is the one I treasure most. Don't believe me?

This morning, I was rudely awakened by a retina-searing ray of sunshine that had crept through my blinds. I usually go to great pains to ensure that never happens; I hate having daylight sneak up on me. I feel that morning is something that should be eased into as gently as possible, perhaps with a large cafe con leche and Cuban toast to soften the blow. However, this morning my defense system had been breached. Apparently the small cat had taken it upon herself to supervise the sunrise from my window sill. Her little fanny had bumped open the blinds just enough to let in the day before I gave it permission.

After it became clear that calling, cajoling, and hissing were not going to dislodge the cat, you would think I would have taken Mother Nature's hint and leapt up, eager to start the day. Or at the very least, rolled over. Uh-uh. Nope. I just lay there, awash in an annoyingly cheery beam, the wheels turning in my head.

"The Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours. 24 hours is 1440 minutes. Therefore, the Earth rotates 1 degree every 4 minutes. So if I just lay here with my eyes closed for 16 more minutes, the problem will relocate." Which it did.

That, my friends, is lazy.

Our Top Story

Okay, the political beat is not my usual stomping grounds, but I had to get this one in. I just read this article on the surprise handover of sovereignty to Iraq. I must admit, I am shocked. I never thought the U.S. would do it. I notice no mention of them removing any troops, but still, it is a powerful gesture.

The part that is bothering me is further down in the article, buried among the outline of the new rules the Iraqi leadership has laid out. This part:

On Saturday, Bremer signed an edict that gave U.S. and other Western civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law while performing their jobs in Iraq. The idea outrages many Iraqis...

I don't blame them. This worries me. A lot. Granted, Iraqi law does not operate with the same sense of fairness as it does here. And perhaps there are some principles in them with which Westerners may not agree. But to exempt foreigners from the laws altogether invites the kind of license that is often taken here in this country by foreign diplomats. Consider the number of stories we've heard of diplomats, immune to prosecution, who run amok in their cities. Also, consider the number of cases we have heard about in recent years, assaults on civilian women and girls carried out by military men stationed in a foreign country. Thinking themselves above the law. Above common decency.

I think one of the first bastions against the chaos of human nature is a code of rules, and fear of punishment. This is the beginning of civilization; you can't leave it up to man's better instincts. Without law, I don't think he ever would have developed any.

Embracing the void...

All my days begin the same way. I wake up and grope for the remote. I switch on the TV, either music on VH1 or morning news. I ease into my day by embracing the coma of the TV for a while, maybe a half hour if I am in school, maybe several hours if I don't have anywhere in particular to be.

The moving images on the screen take the place of real people, ease my terror of alone. There are human voices to wake me, and speak to me, and sometimes I even talk back if the news is silly enough, or frightening enough. If there was a grammatical slip that begs me to be corrected.

My mother once told me that on weekends, on vacations, she might go for days without speaking. If the phone doesn't ring, if she doesn't go out, that she is surprised by the sound of her own voice on occasion. I worry about that in my own life. If I live here alone long enough will I forget how to speak? Will my throat close up, the words shrivel and die at the back of my mouth? Will I forget what conversation sounds like? So, the TV was my salvation, the colorful moving people sweeping in and out of frame and telling me stories that I probably don't need to hear, but oh well, at least I have the illusion of company.

Today, though, I decided to embrace silence for a few hours. Do some chores. Try to hear myself think. And maybe that was what I had been afraid of, too. Listening to my mind, undistracted. But there is a price for this. I am the rude girl in Perrault's fairy tale; from my mind may spring snakes and toads. They would have to be faced. Dealt with. Banished. Or maybe, embraced and reabsorbed as a part of who I am.

Toad #1. This is a little one, who hopped onto the arm of the chair as I read a new book. I spend a lot of time worrying about being liked. I always have. I try to always be helpful, cheery and good. Like a girl scout without the cookies, although I bake those too. But I am not sure why.

I Must Interject...

Some question arose about an earlier entry. My friend Ryk asked me if he was the idiot to which I referred when I commented on my writing class. I just want to state publicly that Ryk is most certainly not the idiot of whom I spoke. Ryk is a dear and a sweetie, who treats women in general and me in particular, with genuine warmth and respect.

The idiot in question is a small-minded, self-aggrandizing jerk, with delusions of literary grandeur, whose pretentious mouth writes checks his meager talent is completely unprepared to cash. I won't mention his name. That's how demons get called forth from the underworld.

Although, I have my doubts as to whether he could spell half the words I just used.

Digging in the Dirt

I just listened to a TV preacher give a "men's service." I don't usually pay any attention to TV preachers, but the cadence and theatrics of this one gave me pause. As did the crowd; I have never seen that many men, in one place, paying attention to someone who wasn't moving a ball down 10 yards of sweat-soaked grass.

I was listening to him with interest, right up until the place in his sermon where he intimated that the men in the crowd shouldn't talk to their wives about the things God was whispering to them in the night, lest their road to salvation be "contaminated" (yes, I am quoting here) with her doubts. Uh-Huh. However, he lost me completely when he brought forth the analogy of the seed. He asserted that men were seeds, and that all the "dirt", all of the evil, cruel, and criminal things that the men had in their past was merely God's way of getting them to grow into the men they should be.

I don't mean to cross God, but I am hoping he sends me a man who was grown hydroponically.

Teacher Becomes the Student

So, this is the end of my first week in the writing seminar I signed up for. It has been interesting, and personally rewarding. I've met a lot of great people. And one idiot, but those are everywhere, like roaches and graffiti. Eventually you learn to ignore them.

Besides, the good has far outweighed the bad. I am having fun, thinking, growing, which sadly does not happen much during the school year. And I am writing, which also, sadly, does not happen much during the school year. The best thing about the class, however, is all the great people I've met. There is something about being in the company of teachers who are also writers. I feel comfortable, like there is a shared experience there. We are not just talking about the kids, and the school grades, and the FCAT. We are actually doing something that is for us as writers, not just to improve our skills as teachers. Finally, I get to be in a class, sponsored by the county, that remembers we were people long before we were teachers. That we are not just the job we do; we are the lives we live away from books, and faculty meetings and kids that are not ours.

Yankee or Dixie?

Take the test...

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html

According to this, I am 57% Dixie. Which means I watch way too much television.

See y'all!

The Horror, the Horror

Ad for a diet site...Does this guy not look like what would happen if Adam Sandler and the Fab 5 had a baby?