Labor Day Crazy Weekend.
I’m home. Actually writing this from Home.
I will be going to sleep, then waking up to Eric at the door, then driving to VT for a wedding, and then driving back down here to pick up Mandy from the airport, then touring around Boston, then something or other, then something or other, then to Eric’s for the Barn Dance, then maybe sleeping in a tent, and then something or other and then flying back out.
I shall be filling the something or other spaces with something or other. Maybe seeing you if you live around here.
Good to be home. I’ll take pictures.
Let’s Make It Clear
Do you really think I should wallow in your version of misguided, vicarious self pity?
Do you really think I should be all butt hurt, like you are, for something that doesn’t concern you, other than feeling like you should be “defending” someone you care about?
Do you really think that I, who am intimately involved in the situation, who has something to gain/lose, should kowtow to your perverted sense of what is right/wrong?
Do you really think that you’re two cents on the matter, you who were not speaking, ever, to both sides of the issue, has the right, the moral footing, to speak to me now about it, just because you somehow grew the testicular fortitude to open your mouth?
Do you really think that I should care, when I know you don’t know, but pretend you do?
If you need a quick lesson in regards to these, and other related questions, please feel free to stop by the following location for all of your “spiritual” gossiping needs:
http://greyparty.net/2008/06/04/suicide-king/
That should give you a nice reminder of how things are in reality, whether you care to see it clearly or not. And this is while fully acknowledging the irony that the material there, while written by me, was not originally written for me; However, it applies to very nicely to the current situation. And even there, the “you” seems to more accurately to represent you, not her. Maybe you should read that again: not her, but you.
Let me make it clear, so you don’t miss it:
“But YOU say that we must ante up until we bust, but I’m sorry.
So sorry, I cannot stay in this rut. I’ve had enough . . .”
Read carefully.
Search your heart.
Stick your nose elsewhere.
Deal with it.
I already have.
And if you think that the previous statement is false, or if you have questions onto its merit, you know where to find me: face to face, not behind my back, with your whispered comments and rolling eyes.
~ A Public Service Announcement from the MEHangment.
I Will Not Apologize
I am happy.
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Basho, the Japanese poet of haiku, has been one of my reads recently. He once wrote:
Come, see real
flowers
of this painful world.
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The Roots have a new CD out: “Rising Down.” One of the songs features Talib Kweli, which makes me happy on many levels. The song is called “I Will Not Apologize.” It’s been on my mind a lot. Not for the content of the song, so much as the title, and it’s melody.
It’s catchy. It sticks. It grabs your brain and doesn’t let go.
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School has started up again. Readjusting to waking up in the morning, planning, teaching, relating, forming new relationships, working on old ones, grading.
Dealing with problems that may or may not arise on a daily basis. It’s what I do. It’s what I love.
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I’ve returned from a very long summer, full of travel and travail. I wouldn’t change any of it, despite wishes to the contrary. Everything fell into place in its own way, in its own time. Nothing to do but accept it.
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I’m teaching Good and Evil this year again, an ethics class, a philosophy class. I will no doubt cover the stoics who believed that the universe was already set in stone. You cannot change things, so hoping for change is pointless. You must learn to want what the universe gives you.
This knowledge changes how most students look at the phrase “being stoic.”
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Walk boldly on,
through fly-swarms
into Kiso.
~ Basho
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Someone who loves me gave me a set of presents to open before every class that I teach this year, for the first day of school. Her picture is above my desk. Mine, over hers.
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This is the time of the year which should be called “Homecoming.” Former students converge on my door frame, email, voicemail, facebook, and text message inboxes. I am updated on live lived well and not so well. I am told of connections made from class to those lives. Thanks is not infrequent, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, being one who doesn’t take compliments well. Hugs and handshakes are more than enough.
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Spring rain-
they rouse me,
the old sluggard.
~Basho
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One of my coworkers, a little sister really, spoke of leaving the school a few years back. A thought which is on my mind. She used the illustration of David cutting the cloth of Saul in the cave, tied to the idea of cutting the cord in other areas of life. That sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes you have to see where things are not working. Where they are unproductive. When the connection that you have formed, the relationship you have tied yourself to, is more painful than pleasing. Sometimes you have to cut the cord.
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“I will not apologize. . . This is for all of my peoples who understand and truly recognize. Some won’t get it and for that I won’t apologize”
~ The Roots & Talib Kweli
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I am happy.
Another Poem To Be Published
Another one that was a stretch for me to write and have been slaving over for . . . oh, 5-6 years.
Niceness.
Can’t post here until after it is published however. Copyright issues and all that.
Really? Hmmm
