Darkness in the Daytime

 astronomy, by design, asks for big thinking.

the distance, the scale, the possibilities.

variables are calculated, gravity pulls,

And sometimes, days turn dark.

An owl awakens early; the rooster trots inside.

the streetlights aren't sure what to do.

no moon, no stars, no evening news.

no wind-down, no pajamas, no bedtime story.

When astronomy aligns in such a way

that darkness and daytime overlap, 

I smile and walk

in a new direction.

poetry is motion

In this world, the one we live in, I can't help but feel as though I am dangling off the back, holding on for dear life. It flies forward with me desperate to keep hold. All that is best exemplified in my attempts to understand the young minds of 2019. Me, a 38 year old grey, attempting to keep pace with a 17 year old pink/blue/bleach blonde. 

Regardless, I am trying. All I can do is try. One of my students informed me of IDAHOBOIT day. An event, a flag flying, people with like minds gathering. I contributed the following:

#ItGetsBetter

If we all sit, determined.

Pondering when life's suck

Was its strongest.

Would we all agree?

High school: a black hole for comfort.

Pimpled and greased,

covered in a thin layer of body spray: Lynx Uber-Angst All-Day spray,

I sit tapping. Tapping. Tapping.

All this unspeakable

Noise kept between

Xeric lips behind braced teeth

Ill-equipped to speak

Emote or dress with any

Truth or honesty due to a

Yearn to just fit in.

My sneakers, too white, too dirty, not absurd enough but covered in a thin layer of adolescent grease-- it shimmers as angst.

The lockers, the cafeteria food,

The getting of boners in gym shorts.

The Misfits shirt and ponytail, dyed fringe, avant- piercings,

The random objects flying through the air,

magnetically attracted to the empty tin can that is my self-esteem.

Thinking, but not admitting,

This is everyone.

All this is nothing.

Everything to a sixteen year old skinny, spectacled, lost boy.

Everything to  a white middle-class heterosexual university bound student with two loving parents.

Everything to this privileged prick supported by every support that can support a teen.

From this vantage, dead center in the middle of a bleached white college-ruled page of a one subject spiral bound notebook, I can see the margins. The frayed edges and violent scribbles out there.

From the center, I barely made it.

How do we expect anyone on the margins to?

An Email I sent the other day that felt like a blog post, so I decided to post it on my blog

I sent this email to a collection of friends the other day. After everyone asking me to keep them included in future emails, I thought there is a better system in place for this type of communication. That system is a blog. I have a blog. So, while a blog sometimes feels less personal, if you are reading this please understand that future communications are being run through here for the sole reason that my gmail contacts are a mess and I can't send the mass email to everyone I want without leaving multiple people out. Let's see if this monthly experiment works out.

Hey friends,

Its a lazy Friday here at the new office job, so I thought I would spend some of my day writing down some of the memories from our first month in Australia. I apologize for the mass email format here. I think that is what people do when they send BCC type emails to a bunch of people- they apologize for doing it. As a chronic apologizer, I will follow suit. I hope to invest more energy in personalized emails that discuss the intricacies of Aussie lingo. However, I am going to start with this email. It gets the ball rolling, and then hopefully we can go more in depth in October-- a month known for its depth.

To start, in the past week or so I have stopped defending American coffee. As a manifestation of their strong nationalism, Australians claim they have the best coffee. It's almost as if they think by stealing the way Italians make coffee, they can say THEIR coffee is the best. I took offence to this, as I do whenever someone goes blind nationalism on me, and I will still take a medium Dunkin Donuts Iced coffee with milk (no sugar) over the large flat whites I have been drinking. However, the coffee is pretty good and N and I find ourselves "grabbing a coffee" much more frequently than in the past. The coffee shock continued when I explained to two interns at the office lunch table the other day how a french press works. They were fiddling around with the plunger and the pitcher wondering where they inserted the Keurig style packet and making complete asses out of themselves, so I (having never spoken to these people) took it upon myself to step in and spread the knowledge of the coffee universe, coming off as a smug dick in the process. I think I took it as an opportunity to vent my frustrations with millenials, much like every older generation has done since the dawn of man.

Speaking of coffee, during our first week here everyone caught a nasty stomach bug. While staying at Solitaire and Ricky's house, we all spent 24 hours vomiting and aching and experiencing that flu-like symptoms style of life. Luckily, N caught it on a Monday and I watched Byron, then I caught it on Tuesday and N watched Byron. During my Tuesday from hell, I didn't drink any coffee at all. The headache led me to avoiding coffee for a few days--cold turkey style. Then, I got a job with complimentary coffee that trickles out of a little espresso machine in the prototypical office kitchen located 25 paces from my desk. I have told myself that my next cold turkey coffee week will come soon.

Speaking of my desk. I am working for a really cool startup here in Sydney. If you can swallow the term "startup culture," read the next sentence; otherwise, skip ahead. Startup culture is huge in Sydney. Everyone I meet wants to start their own online company that offers an app telling customers what bicycle gear to shift to depending on the readings of the accelerometer on their smartphone. That's not a real business idea, but the ridiculousness of it gives you an idea of what we have going on around here. Sometimes the outrageousness of these cultural movements creates brilliance though. I think that is what is going on at Cuberider, the company I am working for. Two 23 year olds run it and their goal is to send student experiments to space. The logistics of this are fascinating and in depth. Check out their website (hyperlink removed to avoid anyone from the company finding this blog and judging me) for more info on how they do it. There are 9 of us on the team and we all help in every aspect. As a side effect, I am spending time studying the python coding language and constantly reading up on Elon Musk's twitter feed. All of this is an exciting new learning experience for me, but another part of me wishes these people were publishing short stories or incorporating science fiction into their curriculum. As much as the physics science stuff hits on the STEM learning initiative, it doesn't quite hit me in my element. I find myself wishing these people were a little more liberal-artsy. Especially when we talk about Netflix's Stranger Things or Chris Nolan's Interstellar. Both of which I want to defend, but everyone else wants to make puke sounds towards. Give me some poets in this office! How many individuals around the world are shouting that from their cubicle right this moment? I am here until the end of the year, but then may need to bail on the startup game depending on the latest self-help book I have read around that time. For my book clubbers, I recently read Ken Robinson's Finding your Element, and Chris Hadfield's An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth. Sorry Alex, I did not make it through the book you gave me, but read the letter you left in the spine frequently.

Speaking of reading, I take a train to work every day. It takes 85 minutes to go from Woy Woy (yup- that's the name of a town) on the Central Coast, to Town Hall station in Sydney. Every morning I think of this funny jam band that used to exist in the Philadelphia area named TownHall. One time we played a show with them on the tiny East End Cafe stage and their conga drummer got real mad at Sam for asking to move his conga drums off the stage so we could fit. I laugh as I walk through the subway turnstyles and into the hustle and bustle of the metropolis rush hour. That was such a big deal in 2002, or whenever it was. The conga drummer! what a dick! why can't he just move his fucking conga drums and quit being such a jerk about it. I mean, he's a conga drummer! That was how we felt then, now 14 years later, I just laugh about it.

Another thing I hope to laugh about in the future is the general disorientation moving to the other side of the world brings. This month I have been unable to grasp any location information that is given to me. I depend on google maps and a little moleskin notebook to get around. I have no idea where Wondabyne is or Ettalong or Walharra or Wyong, or Macquarie, or Mackabee, or Darlinghurst. One of those places is made up, but (even though I wrote it) I couldn't tell you confidently which one it is. Since it is part of my job to plan events for the Cuberider teachers, I need to learn all of these places, but it is just so foreign that my brain aches as I try to take it all in. As someone that was never really able to geo-locate in any situation, this freaks me out a bit. Then you throw in the fact that I need to drive on the opposite side of the road and next thing you know I find myself crying in the bathroom stall wishing I was in Wilmington Delaware where I got lost much less frequently (unless you count the times I needed to drive back from the train station, when I never seemed to choose the proper turn.)

I don't really cry in bathroom stalls. I just get sad knowing that I am missing the birth of a golden era in Philadelphia Eagles football. I only watch highlights and follow the players on twitter. As Monday is a holiday here, I was going to try and watch this weekend's game, but the eagles are on bye. what the heck?

haha- I have to laugh a bit because I am writing this long and not very descriptive letter instead of doing the work on my desk. I blame the fact that my boss made barf sounds when describing Stranger Things. This is my payback. Let me get on to the stuff that everyone really wants to hear about.

BYRON- he is doing great. The last two days he has started riding around on my shoulders. He grabs my hair like the rat in Ratatouille. I cringe and swallow, but his giggling makes the pain go away. He hit 9 months old the other day, and Nogeeshik and I both forgot about it. I said, "oh shit- Byron turned 9 months the other day." N replied, "no he didn't." I said, "sure today is the 29th." she said, "oh- so it was yesterday, not the other day." Technically, we were both right.

Byron plays with Solitaire's kids all day and night. Finn, age 5, has taken a special liking to him. Every morning, when Byron awakes with a bit of a cry, Finn comes in and says good morning. The rest of the day is filled with hugs, giggles, and playing between the two of them. Byron likes to watch Finn dribble the basketball proving that B will dethrone Ben Simmons as Australia's greatest basketball player around the year 2036. It warms my heart knowing that Byron will be able to look up to such cool kids as they grow up fishing, swimming, surfing, and slam dunking together.

Alright, I think this is the longest email I have ever written. Should I keep going? Plenty more to write about. Ricky makes his own beef jerky. He will put it in his dehydrator overnight and we awake to the smell of cured meats. It is fabulous. He also has a bonsai collection and is always trying new beers. While beer in Australia is way less exotic, it is still fun to talk beer and eat jerky. Solitaire refuses to allow us to move out of her house and into our apartment. She says having us there is like being on an extended holiday. We eat dinner together and laugh at the pureed pumpkin Byron has smeared across his forehead. Solitaire says we should just keep living with them until our shipment of furniture arrives in the next 2 weeks (depending on customs). As much as I love sleeping on a bunk bed, I hope we move into our own little apartment sooner.

Our new place has a pool and two porches. Two. As spring begins here, I asked a dude at the local farmers market what the tomato growing season is. He reckons you can grow tomatoes from now until June. Whats that? 9 months. I bought some raised beds and have a lead on some good compost to get our veggie patch going in the next week or so. We already have 3 volunteer tomatoes growing in our back yard. Between the swimming pool and having a little veggie patch and living 10 minutes from the ocean, I am really looking forward to summer. Byron's going to eat so much sand.

We still haven't visited or caught up with all the folks we hope to spend the fall catching up with. I had the idea to host an American Thanksgiving in November. It gives us 2 months to settle in and figure out how to cook a turkey in an oven that uses degrees celsius. I can't wait. I hope to have purchased a record player then and will play records, drink wine, and be thankful of all the great meals I have shared with friends over the years.

uh oh- two millenials just strolled in to the office (12 noon). I better get to it.

When researching the cosmos, connections should be cataloged

In or around 2011, I wrote a crummy novel. The first paragraph of which, is about earth, the small blue dot. This year, 2016, is suddenly in its second half. I am now writing space blogs for a space company that sends experiments into space. Today's blog post: Carl Sagan. I don't know much about Sagan, so in reasearching him, I found he wrote a book called The Pale Blue Dot, referring to earth in the same way my novel began. The connections seemed significant. Is is a road sign in my life? Below is a video of Sagan's book and the text of my novel. I am going to think for the rest of the day that maybe the final frontier needs more of my energy:

There was a small blue dot.  Upon approach, it grew and grew and grew.  As it gained circumference, it also gained shape and color and eventually, an atmosphere.  Within the atmosphere, the small blue dot broke into collections of rocks and drops of water.  Within those collections of rocks and drops of water, there were millions upon billions of electrons buzzing about, each in its own space, and each purposefully avoiding its cohorts.  Those electrons carried energy and ideas and kingdoms across the small blue dot.  As the dot grew more, its companion appeared.  It was a grey beast speckled with the scars of millennia.  It spoke to us, it lured us, it convinced us that this small blue dot was just that- a small blue dot.

Poem in Your Pocket Day

April 30th, the last day of National Poetry Month, is poem in your pocket day. Our school asked everyone to walk around with a poem in their pocket and share it at will. It was a pretty big success. One of my favorite parts was an email thread that started up amongst the English department. All of the english teachers chortled about their favorite poems and how they were excited to read them to students. Frost, Yeats, Collins and others were discussed over the longest email thread the english department has shared all year long. The discussion inspired me to write a poem:

When I answered I teach English

to the cocktailed woman beside me

she responded,

Oh my- what a noble pursuit

to battle such malleable minds.

As her drink sipped to nothing

I stood with a furrowed brow

silently thinking

No no- I just like talking about

poetry.

I hope you had a good Poem in Your Pocket Day. The poem I kept in my pocket can be found here.

Chapter 2: The long walk of the Navajos

When my granddad died, I received a check for a thousand dollars.  I went to the mall and bought a new pair of sneakers and a video game. 

I still wear the sneakers when we play basketball.  I play poorly and comfortably.  On the court we talk of pretty girls and sports stars.  I strongly believe that none of us will succeed in the real world.  We slowly apply a comfortable disillusionment cushioned by a large bowl of popcorn placed on the table in front of the latest George Clooney movie.  

My beliefs in the future are not meant to be taken as concepts of sag-shouldered failure, but more as cultivated acceptance that there is little room for anyone else in the already crowded elevator heading north towards financial success.  I am scared of crowded places; lets take the steps.  I want to utilize.  I want to make crucial life decisions.  I want to make a compass out of a pinecone. I want to just scrape by, I want to listen to bluegrass songs and wish they were talking about me.  I want a lot of things.  When I was younger I wanted to lie between my parents while cartoons played at the foot of their bed.  Later, I wanted to tell my teachers to fuck off.  After that I wanted to kiss Sarah Atkins with my eyes closed.  Now, at the pivotal age of 21, I just want to go to outer space.  I want to man the laser cannon and barely make it through the asteroid field.  I want to curl up into a ball and spin around.  I want to play classical music and do back flips.  I want to be held down by a seatbelt and push very important buttons.  I want to look down at the earth and wave as if my mom could see me.  I want to extend my arms and welcome in billions of miles of unexplored twilight.

I mop the floor at a bar.  At the end of the night, as I push the vomit into a small pile before sprinkling it with sawdust and sweeping it into a garbage bag, I often wish that I was Future-Biff from Back to the Future 2.  In the background the late-night Sportscenter plays on mute and classic rock churns from the radio.  This all melts atop my sweaty brow and bleeds through the membrane of my imagination.  Oh what I would do if I had the sports almanac from the future.  I would be wealthy beyond all others.  I would be the guy who is banned from Las Vegas casinos due to my mysterious gambling divinity.  I would buy my friends a round of drinks and say, “To the good life.”  I would purchase two jet skis so we could race.  I would wear large breasted women like linebackers wear shoulder pads.  I would go on long drawn out binges only to later pay someone at some sort of medical center to rejuvenate my abused insides.  I would wear sunglasses and hair grease in the backyard of celebrities.  Oh this would be grand.  Give me the upper hand so I can exploit it out the yin-yang.

I haven’t paid my electric bill in two months.  It sits in front of me chanting nonsense involving responsibility and prudence.  I turn up the music and dance.  Seeing my tattered bed sheets as a complex origami labyrinth, I spring from my floor to my bed.  There is little time left to procrastinate, it must be utilized through lock-n-key idiocy.  No one will discover my actions…  I will shine behind walls as others position toupees and apply eye shadow.  I will laugh at my jokes when no one else does.  I will reposition the stickers on a rubix cube, then show off.  I will dance, I will stare at others dancing making them feel uncomfortable, then dance some more.  Who has time to accomplish when such bubbly intricacies bury motivation underneath bright-colored ash that tastes like distraction?

I never saw my Granddad without a tie and blazer on.  I have a vivid image of him in a pastel sports coat with matching slacks and a tie.  He would walk slowly, waiting to reach something he could balance his tall rickety body upon.  He would sit down, cross-legged, and seem pleased when I told him about recent accomplishments in my life.  His wrinkled eyes undoubtedly remembering his ancient childhood, while his arthritic hands struggled to grip his cocktail.  The carpet at his house was always very clean. 

When my Grandfather died, it brought the whole family close together.  It went beyond hugging and closing our eyes while he was lowered into the ground.  There was some odd calibration under our roof— the patriarch had passed on.  Someone asked me the other day if I was more afraid of death or dying.  I think that is an outlandish and foolhardy question.  I’m afraid of being trapped underwater, unable to breath… the slow imagining of all the things I will never accomplish, my lungs afire and my eyes bulging in reply to the dreadful taste of salt water.  I suppose that is dying.  I am more afraid of dying.

Another old poem

I am tentative to post this one, as it is not anything I am overly proud of. I just really like the first stanza. The last 5 words in that stanza bug me, but I think the first line is the best first line to a poem I have ever written:

For a long time I thought the Clash were singing “rock the cashbox.”

I find out many times that I am wrong.

It’s funny how life works that way-

Always finding little ways to fuck me in the ass.

Sometimes I realize I am wrong as

I pick the burnt pieces of popcorn from an overcooked bag discovering that

The Cosby show comes on at 6 instead of 6:30.

I wish I had someone besides myself to apologize to at these times.

Instead I sit alone in pathetic boredom. 

Unable to make decisions.

My mind stuck in a rowboat on a foggy lake with a friend named Harry.

When Harry asks which way is home,

I will answer… and again be wrong.

We will row in circles and wish we had fishing poles.

Harry will joke about the metaphor relating women to fish in the sea.

The boat will tip

My mind will again start churning,

Turning the volume up real loud as I watch hockey fights on television.

fixing little finger and word sandwiches

To serve to my guests.

My guests arrive on time, then leave crying.

the sandwiches had too much mustard and the bread had circles of mold.

They didn’t want to eat around it.

So I’ll sit alone, wondering.

Wondering if I’m alone because of bullshit like destiny and fate,

Or if I’m alone because I constantly

say the wrong things and think wrong and act wrong and

when I try to dance to rap music I do that wrong too.

My mistakes overtake me and I sit,

With the batteries dying on the remote,

and find out it is Sunday instead of Saturday.

Another installment of poems I wrote some time during college:

Anticipating the Equinox

Tonight we lose an hour.

Composed and laughing

In broken chairs atop crowded porches.

Five, six, seven of us

Collecting memories in blue jean pockets.

As the wind picks up

the temperature drops;

We sit, ageless, loveless, and drowsy.

It’s still nice outside…

It’s still the indecisive pre-winter.

The air is a brand new breath mint,

The sky is a cosmic cradle,

The stars seem different from the ones

She sees in California.

I catch frigid explanations of the hour.

Composed and laughing

In broken chairs atop crowded porches

I'm up for a sweatshirt,

And five more beers.

Tonight we lose an hour,

Work comes that much sooner.

As the conversation calms,

I consider calling it a night,

Unfortunately,

My bed is cold and empty.

The shadows grow earlier,

We no longer grill with our shirts off,

We eat in the moonlight.

Our appetites rushed by prime time programming.

Tonight we lose an hour,

Composed and laughing

In broken chairs atop crowded porches

We gain two bad jokes

About sex with animals and a priest.

Reflection: I'm trying to determine what I was attempting to do at the end and realizing that I was probably just waiting for someone to ask me that question so I could shrug my shoulders at them and talk about how poetry needs to lighten up a little. Either way, I remember Mary Karr, a teacher of mine, telling me I needed to think in stanzas and progressions and add a bit of formality to the structure of my poems if not the theme of my poems. This is about as close as I got to writing in stanzas. Re-reading it now, I quite like the breaks. 

I have a bunch more poems I want to post, so check back soon.

Poems from 2002

The other day, I uncovered some writing I did in college. It is fun to look back on the time of my life when I wrote every day. Now I tell my students they need to write every day, and I watch Brooklyn 99 on Hulu. I cringed, I laughed, and I decided I want to share a lot of it on this blog- but maybe not all at once. This place has become mostly an archive. I look back every now and then at past posts and smile. With that thought in mind, this blog is a win.

In honors of Valentine's Day, I thought my first Jon:the college years post could be a love poem. This was written some time between 2001 and 2002:

The coward on love 

I’ll write a poem

On a rose petal,

She’ll love me for that.

She’ll say,

“How divine, how romantic,

lets have picnics,

he’s mine.

And some day soon

 we’ll laugh

In an apartment atop dirty streets

Where the affluent turn round,

But he’ll live

next to me.

We’ll argue about

Car trouble, instability, and

Dumb dreams.

He’ll do art, I’ll support him.

We’ll work hard and raise children.

He’ll still be damned hot

When he’s wrinkled and bald. 

Then our graves will lie next

 to a tree which turns pretty in autumn.”

So I sit

With a pen and a rose and some thoughts.

Pour my heart into symbols

Of passion distraught.

The finale is deep,

So creative and true.

Our future’s so bright

She’ll be mine oh so soon.

But the poem doesn’t fit on the little red shape,

so fuck it.

Juicy

If you are anything like me, this question is difficult to answer:

When was the last time you went a day without eating sugar?

Excluding the kind that gives life to a piece of fruit or attracts a bee to a flower, I think I have gone years with daily intake of some sort of processed sugar. It's in the obvious stuff like soda, ice cream, certain cereals, but it is also in the not so obvious stuff; bread, salsa, some hamburgers, and just about every juice you can buy. Now, this is plain for everyone to see. I'm not reporting any groundbreaking  information or attempting to do so. I don't expect the last few sentences to be anything you haven't already read on a different blog or a health magazine you get for free because you subscribed to a celebrity gossip magazine.

Wait, wait. My worst fears are coming true. This post is going to sound preachy! oh man.

I may just delete it, or I may keep writing since I'm listening to the latest St. Vincent album and I'm feeling jazzed. Oh fuckshit! People are going to think I am being preachy because I mentioned a popular indie-rock artist casually in my writing... I should delete that bit too. Sun of a gun, this is becoming difficult. Perhaps if I push towards the point it will turn towards a picnic.

So, with that in mind, I have decided to try and not eat sugar or caffeine for the past few days. I started off doing a sort of vegan adventure and now I am solely slurping my smoothie/juice diet. It is quite a change for me. I always ate well and have a talented wife who cooks a variety of delicious meals all the time so I never concerned myself with my diet. Then, due to various circumstances, I started contemplating addiction in a new light. My thoughts ran the gamut: How can I be sympathetic to addicts? I have never been addicted to anything, and I don't see why they are. Addiction is not a choice. et cetera et cetera. I was just reading and witnessing addiction and processing the information through my sugar and caffeine fueled brain. Then a small bird landed on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. It said that certain products I was consuming daily are addictive. It also said that I have a chemical dependency to those items and they control me. Their grip has been marketed to be tight. Their lingering lure has been fed through my nostrils. Their processed pinch tickles a bit. I did not like what this bird was telling me.

Then, the anti-consumerist in me took hold. I freaked at the idea of some corporation pumping its product full of sugar and/or caffeine in order to lure more consumers (and teenage ones at that!) in and I was one of those consumers and they were luring me in and I needed to explode their headquarters from a helicopter. Then I took a deep breath.

Enjoyment. The hedonist in me whispered from a nearby hammock. Isn't the meaning of life to find enjoyment in all things? Your palette (which I always imagined was the flat bit of your tongue, is that right?) should be stimulated with the things you enjoy. Your body should dance to the music you enjoy. You should read the silly books about dragons you enjoy. What else is there in life?

It's a fair point.

But it didn't swing the scale in the dietary decision I made. And let me tell you, sugar and/or caffeine and/or gluten and/or the other things I haven't been eating have really messed my head up. My energy level is fine, my belly is fine, my dreams are crazy, but my head is constantly throbbing. I'm not a big headache guy. If my head starts to hurt, it's usually from dehydration or reading in the car. When I do have headaches, I just take a deep breath or get fresh air or pour a cup of coffee. However, when I have shunned coffee from my diet for the first time in 5 years or so, I am witnessing the effect it has on me. It is amazing. And while that headache throbs most hours and in two days when I am done with the juice diet, I am going to drink coffee again, it is empowering.

I control my body. Not that weird wizard on the starbucks cup. Not the keebler elf. and not Ben nor Jerry. Some day, when I am kicking back, living a life of leisure and have a basketball court in my yard I will stop drinking coffee. Or fuck it- maybe I won't. No- I will. Because the whole importance of all this is that these fucking drugs that are in my food that I eat all the time and my drinks that I drink all the time have potentially taken control of my thoughts. Now, today, without them, their lingering dying artifacts are gripping my temples as I try to flush them out with beet juice and banana pulp; they hold on tight. And that tight grip is throbbing. Its alright though. I remember being little and having a tooth hang on by a little sinewy string. It dangled from my mouth like a limp, useless corpse. It too broke free as will the caffeine and sugar fists. My head will not hurt tomorrow and my conscience will be pumped up.

To Kill a Mockingjay

This is the second installment in my substitute teaching fan fiction series. To read the first installment, click here.

He wondered why he even traveled to the outer districts.  Sure, he understood the need was there and the job was there. However, at the end of the day, would there be any bread left for Jon?

He drove thirty minutes west towards the outer district.  The trees grew up around him until he suddenly passed into a giant field.  On the outer edge, he saw it- the outer district training center.  Today, he would need to prepare the citizens of district 11 for an important task in their dim futures: Venn diagram completion.

Commissioner Venn had created a full proof system.  With two swift strokes of his fountain pen, he showed each trainee how they were different, but not unequal.  They were all the same in some ways, but do not forget that we are different... separate.

Jon had long accepted the fact that each district had their own ways, but when the bell rang they all made the same sound.  The cacophony of district 11 was no different than the blabbering of district 8 or the chit chat of district 17 or the howling of district 2.   Jon had built an immunity to it- at least on most days.

Today Jon requested, asked, and then demanded his trainees' silence.  He had dimmed the lights, closed the blinds, and allowed them to shift their metal seats loudly across the tiled floor. Each time they asked for more, he knew he was losing control, and as he had been trained- you have to control the game to succeed.  As the opening credits to the classic To Kill A Mockingjay played, Jon stood high on a desk and made one final move for respect.  Suddenly, he had silence.  Some traineees logged out, placing their heads on their desks, others picked up their pencils and began their training.  He had done it... barely.

The peanut butter and jelly desegregated in his mouth.  He chomped down in silence- a short rest before the training would restart.  The importance of the Mockingjay might be lost on most students, but Jon had to control the room again for those who would learn to love it as he had learned to love it decades ago in similar metal chairs on similar tiled floors and awaiting a similar result in fate's arena.

A Raven has sent Word

Today I received a raven from Hampshire.  It had an all important message fit for pages of this binding:

Warn Sir Jon that his adopted liege lords wear smiles with sharp teeth and send him on quests they would be loathe to venture on themselves.  He should know, too, that among his young masters their may be an Arthur, but there are also morphlings sent by the dark mistress to suck his blood, crush his spirit, and laugh at his dreams... Still, if, with his light armor and untempered steel, he can survive that barren frontier, he will learn wonderful secrets and sharpen his craft and cunning to become a true knight. If he can endure, he will one day find honor upon the field, loyal colleagues at his side, and quests beyond imagining.  Goodspeed, Sir Jon!


Yet another lesson to carve into the storm battled wood of my life-tree.  

The Squire was no locksmith

So recently I have been doing substitute teaching work. There are a great number of issues I have with the work, but there is one great part of subbin'. Every night I come home and can have a beer, watch some TV and relax.  I don't have to lesson plan or stress or worry about much and it feels great.  In fact, recently, since I don't get Comcast Sportsnet, I have been getting a bit bored. And so, I thought I would try and write about my disposable daily experiences in order to keep a log.  Then, I thought maybe it would be fun to write about them as if I were in various universes I enjoy visiting. While this might sound like escapism, it's really something entirely different- and that something is fan fiction. So, here is my first entry into my substitute teaching fan fiction storylog. 

Jon knew he was traveling East as the sun pierced his windshield.  The kingsroad was quieter than he expected at this hour, as he drove by Sir Duncan's, Jon debated stopping for a warm mug of dark cream to help thaw his bones.   No! tardiness would be a mark of death with his faceless masters.  It was a risk his dripping eyes would blink away.  He carried on, reminded of the words of his bride's house sigil: the early bird.

Upon arrival he was handed a scroll with his day's chores.  They were lengthy at first glance and Jon became as confused as a Dothraki in water. He was used to a way of sheet working and screen viewing and such tasks took little explanation. Here, before him was something new... something exciting.

As he leafed through his mission, he learned he would be spending the day as a squire for a young master.  A squire's duties are not to be overlooked. He must see to his master's every need and be sure his master is fully capable of indulging in the full gain of education.  Pencils must be sharp as a dragon's talon and pages must be turned as swiftly as a king's reign.  It is the squire's duty to keep his master apace with his peers and not allow him to fall behind. As while the war is still early, Jon knew important victories were had in a king's youth as much as in his old age.

When he finished his master's scroll, Jon's brow lifted in excitement. He realized his day would be a rarity in the realm of his craft. He would be squiring for a master in a steel chair.  The steel chair masters were often well aware of their unique attribute.  They excelled above  many of the other players in the game as they had already accepted and embraced their individuality. In a realm in which trying to fit in and be absorbed into the mass was such a commonality, the steel chaired patrons of the realm had long left that trivial and ridiculous concept in the dust.  Jon hoped Sir Alan would be such a master.

It did not take long to realize, this was the case.  In a quick minute, Alan had grabbed his squire's instructions and read through them disapprovingly.  "Young squire," he beckoned, "these scrolls shall treat us fairly today, but take not- my name is misspelled in paragraph two. We cannot have such mistakes." Master Allen spoke confidently and with a candor unseen in these lands. Squire Jon was entrenched in the mid-lands; a place of vanity in which the house sigils were commonly colored blue to represent a desirable, yet unattainable, image of cool.  Master Alan, caped in a green hooded windbreaker, continued to speak,  "Furthermore, my locker needs opening."

At that, the squire bent down and quickly fiddled through the three number combination hoping it would work. It did not.  Squire Jon was no locksmith. In fact, he rarely carried a key to anything except his front gate. He reversed it, knowing that in some parts of these lands, clocks ticked backended.  Again, it did not open. Master Alan peered over Jon's shoulder, instructing him as his shaking fingers spun left to right to left again, and with a single clink- the iron lock sprung.  The day had just begun and the squire knew he would have to be on his toes with this one.

Criticism

Is there a place in the world where people are just happy to appreciate things as they are?  Where they read an article or story or poem and instead of criticizing it, they say, "wow, someone put a lot of effort into making that... Good for them!"?

What is the air like in this place? Would it be as fresh as a cracked orange? It wouldn't need to be.  People wouldn't criticize smog.  They would think about how great it is to be able to travel anywhere they want affordably or how useful electricity can be.

What is the food like there?  Would it be made with the love and care of a Grandmother preparing Thanksgiving? It wouldn't need to be.  People would realize, despite the bland taste, the nutrients were still giving them useful energy.

What is the classroom like there? Would the students quit moaning about homework and calling Shakespeare, "stupid?" Would they embrace the concept of knowledge and treat their peers with respect? Would they come to class on time and apply themselves in hopes of discovering something new?  It wouldn't need to be.

I am

This week I had an assignment for class.  I am ashamed to say I scoffed at it.  To understand why, I need to explain that the past 6 months I have been writing lengthy papers about educational theory and connecting it to the classroom.  That seems to make sense when pursuing a masters degree in education.  So when the first assignment for my spring semester course was to:

 write a poem that starts with "I am"

I was a bit shocked.  I was a bit confused.  I reread the syllabus and made sure I wasn't missing the analysis part or the essay accompaniment for the poem.  That was it, just what you read above- write a poem that starts with "I am...". So tonite we sat in class and waited as nervous hands of graduate students that spend their whole day speaking in front of audiences slowly volunteered their voices and I am poems were recited.  It was great.  Every one was different and I learned so much about my classmates.  And it was enlightening and applicable and easy- well except for that bit of nerve-building needed to raise my hand:

I am a spot on a small blue dot.  In a sea, I am a single drop.  I flow over the  falls and am gone.  I am hopeful to make it to a teacup, be swallowed, and, later, sweated out on a dance floor in the basement of a tall building.  I am a thirty one year old student. I am learning. Everyday, after I am done learning, I am a drowsy face on a sofa watching sports highlites. I am a husband.  A good one, most days, some days, most days.  I am calmed by the arms of my wife and the paws of my dog.  I am on mountain tops in North Carolina. I am on a bus heading west, I am clenching my lips trying to keep the Delaware shore out.  I am a riff in a prog rock opus.  I am the upbeat, the augment, the off key.  I am outside the spotlight.  I am backstage, eating hummus, wishing I had clean socks.  I am putting on a sweater to save on the oil bill. I am cancelling the cable to read more. I am eating in. I am avoiding the dentist.  I am still buying good beer.  I am a night porter.  I clock in when everyone is asleep and clock out as they are awaking.  I make the coffee for them.  I enjoy the night.  I am a son.  I can do no wrong. I am not as smart as my parents, and need to quit acting like it.  I am a suburban farm boy.  I am not suburban, I am not a farm boy.  I am good at NBA Jam. I am a dog person.  I never truly understood cats, but still enjoy when they curl up on my stomach.  I wish I knew my way around Philadelphia better. I am a grid-city kind of guy.  I can figure out Manhattan.  I am Jon and I have a sneaker fetish. I have spent upwards of hours online ordering sneakers then usually erasing the order.  I am the type of person that stares at the ceiling and wonders what other people think about.  I am looking at the ceiling wondering if other people are the types of people that stare at the ceiling and wonder what other people think about.  I am totally fine with anything.  I am the last person you want to pick a restaurant.  I am engrossed by the stars. I am most engrossed in remote lands when the stars reach down to the horizon.  I look up and see billions of sparks flickering from light years away.  I am a spot on a small blue dot.  

2012

2012

After being inspired by another blog, I thought I would toss up a few things I have thought and learned in a memorable year.  If years are novels, 2012 was the big thick one that you have to wait until you have a lot of free time to read.  So much excitement and so many stories.  If they are desserts, 2012 was the one you have to ask for extra forks to share with the whole table.  If years are days, 2012 was the day you find out days are minutes.  so, let's see:

1. At the tail end of the year (last night) I watched a movie called Temple Grandin about an autistic woman who accomplishes great achievements despite having a number of difficulties she must overcome.  She says, "every time you see a door, you should walk through it."  That works well for her, and I think  more people should give it a go.

2. The value of something should never be viewed as how much the price tag says it costs.  That might be the cost, but the value deals with how much your life will be improved and, ultimately, what happiness will come from the investment.  Furthermore, if you are already happy, you should buy less stuff.

3. Books, unlike any other system of communication, are whole complete worlds created for so many different types of enjoyment.

4. The frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex, typically associated with decision making, does not fully develop until around the age of 25.  I learned this in two different circumstances this year.  Once, in a car with a dad whose son is in his early twenties and once in an educational psychology classroom a few hours after overhearing high schoolers talk about how lame books are.

5. Weddings are great.  the best part of this stage of my life is the abundance of Celebrations for Love.

6.  Would you rather sit and watch a campfire, or sit and watch a river flow by?  surefire debate starter/no wrong answer

7.  Things that are hard usually get easier once you stop thinking about how difficult they are.  This is true for me when I stand up in front of high schoolers and try not to sweat and stutter.

8.  I am slowly approaching the day in which I don't feel silly wearing a full brimmed hat on a regular basis, but moving away from the age in which I don't feel silly with a moustache.

9.  The Circle of Life is more than just a song about the jungle.  It's also a song, that if you use it right, can ignite any type of party.

10. its a shame about the Big East.

don't hate your state- vocate!

I'm in a culture slump.  No, that's not a good term.  Let's see if one appears.  I am sitting with a tightly clenched jaw listening to people talk about education.  Heck ya its important!  someone just said.  Stimulate it!  Tough argument to combat.  But then, the more I seem to listen, the less anyone ever talks about anything besides job training and guiding students towards where the jobs will be.  That is fair.  True.  I don't have much of an argument here except the fact that no one should look at their life as a job.  I hate that message.  Hate is not the right word- disagree- denounce- dial-down maybe.  Perhaps, in the light of attempting enlightenment, educators should allow other ideas to emerge.  It is frustrating to have a whole country's worth of policy makers feel so strongly about something and have that something be shallow but also have everyone's best intentions at heart.  Maybe it has always been this way and I just ignored it. I like to think that at some point people embraced learning because they wanted to figure things out. Not specific things like how to format the processor to upload the database to the server, but things.  Just things.  Those people that maybe want to make connections and learn new things that they can connect other things to so more connections are made and eventually they possess a broad world view and utilize that view to make wise decisions, including maybe some decisions about jobs and money, but other decisions too- ones that have nothing to do with jobs.  Why aren't those people important?  Why can't we encourage eighteen year old kids to do that?  For every vocational school that tells them they can be making this much money by this date if they study this degree at this school, maybe there should be a person letting them know that if they buy a fuel efficient reliable car they can probably see a good deal of the country inexpensively by following these steps and maybe trying to talk to these sorts of people and avoid these sorts of people, but still spend less than what one semester of career training costs.  That choice is a valid educational choice.  Anyone that claims otherwise has seen a different country than me.  And maybe if we encouraged this sort of education, one where money is just a tool utilized to reach your goals instead of a goal in itself, people will be more willing to share.  I don't know, that is somewhat drastic, but I've seen it, I like it, and I want to teach it.

I'd like to fill out a fafsa and fly to Finland with the funds.  Maybe there is value in that.  I feel like for every beer bong drank in college, there should be ten American teenagers talking to Finnish citizens about life, and making connections.  If we can't trust them, they're only kids, they might get taken, then we teach them, train them, and educate them that the world is a beautiful place and filled with beautiful people.  Does this sound like an asshole writing jibberish about bullshit?  When I reread it I come close to almost hitting delete, but it's 4:30 am, and I have  nothing to do until 6 am, so I am going to keep it up.

I know, I get it- people need jobs to survive... but moreso I think people need to quit being so predetermined... I am all for people making an educated decision to follow a career path- heck I am enrolled in a path like that as we speak- BUT can everyone settle down a bit about the necessity to teach these youngsters job skills.  If they are taught critical thinking skills, I feel like a logical next step would be the youngster realizing that s/he needs to get a job... or no, a life.  Get a life in which a job is a part.  But it is just a part if you want it to just be a part. Or if you are really passionate about this job- heck go for it.  I don't want people to sit there thinking I am being anarchistic and plain silly with this because I am being serious.  I don't think your job should rule you (unless you come to that decision on your own accord).

Okay, getting out there.  Really ranting now.  I can feel the assholiness vibrating from the computer monitor.  I'm thinking about wrapping this up here.  Let's see...  History maybe.  Cultural history.  Values, virtues, and maybe something about t.v.  Oh geez, I've lost it.  I just want to pass it off with a, "ya know what I mean?" but I always do that and it rarely works.  I just think we are making large sacrifices to bubbling brains when we train them to believe vocational studies are more important than the humanities and liberal arts studies.  I love living in a country where we compete in the global economy and all, but actually I don't really care about that- it just seems like I should.

Reading Comprehension

A little bird told me that 50-60% of people will be unable to determine what is being described in the passage above.  The enjoyment arrives with the realization.  OR is the enjoyment knowing that you figured it out when 50-60% of readers can't.  You are better at reading and figuring than other readers may be if you believe these numbers.  You did it, you know what will soon begin to sag.  You grinned a gap toothed grin.  It feels good right?

...Well ...honestly, I think I preferred the feeling of just figuring it out.  I remember it.  It took me about 2 minutes and then a light spun on and I said, "no doi!"

A Current Struggle

A man spoke to me a few weeks ago. He was addressing the incoming graduate students as part of a lecture on an endeavor we are all about to begin. It is a dangerous journey filled with deceit, violence, and gum chewing. He told us it would not be easy, but it will become easier with each day. He said we should look at it as an education, but not forget that we are acting within strict guidelines. He told us to buckle up and cover our asses. He was preparing us for student teaching. As the man went on and on about not kissing the high school students and not hitting them with yard sticks my brain wandered. I found myself in a classroom with a trampoline for the floor and 5 fingered hands on the ceiling fan. Each misbehaving student in my class would be bounced from his seat up towards the ceiling where the arm of the fan would spank his hiney. He would fall back to his desk and begin his assignment. My classroom also had a vegetable garden, and each girl in my classroom that wore some sort of outfit that allowed her classmates to know the color of her undergarments would have to plant and grow a vegetable that was a matching color to that of her bra or underpants. Pink tomatoes, purple eggplants and leopard printed zucchini would all grow within my learning environment and then donated to the local food-bank as part of a lesson on building relationships within the community. The man continued to speak though. I jotted a few notes down. They said things like, "TB test required. Find out what TB stands for," and "August 28-put head down, motor through." The whole while I was thinking of if I cannot show this man the respect of focused listening, how could I ask for my students to do so for me? Then he dropped some words that hit me hard. He mentioned what century we are living in (21st) and that the times have changed. He promised us that students would be googling our names and looking to see what sort of beer pong photos there are of us on facebook and if we want their respects we should wipe ourselves from the internet. I was excited about the facebook part, figuring it might be healthy. Then I realized that maybe a student would stumble across the silly babblings of this site. Here they are talking about student's underpants and how they downloaded music illegally! How could this person be the one teaching my little Vesuvius?! I am struggling with the decision. The only teacher I ever had that was on facebook had a profile picture of him flicking off a road sign that said Republican St. He was a great teacher. I was 30 years old in his classroom though. There will be little paste sniffing fourteen year olds all hopped up on boner juice and Justin Bieber gossip that may read this blog. you know what... let 'em. Ain't no one learning from being kept in the dark. In fact, I'll tell them right here: one time, when I was your age, I threw a spitball at a student teacher in one of my math classes. And you know what, it was less than five years before I realized what a bozo I was. I also made fun of a peer for being real pale and looking like a vampire (before that was cool) and you know what, I still regret that all the time- really seriously regret it. You know what else? I was scared to just be myself and tried desperately to be someone I thought would appeal to my peers.  I tried all sorts of illegal acts and made dumb decisions and hurt a lot of people I loved and I regret that about as much as Adam Sandler regrets Jack & Jill.

So- I was hoping this catharsis would help and I think I will keep this site functioning.  It always makes a good story to get fired from your job for writing something stupid on the internet.

Is this what Steve Jobs was talking about?

So I recently finished the Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson.  It was a bit tormenting as the author dedicated so much time to Apple computers and so little time to everything else that you never knew about the man.  After getting through a lengthy part about how important getting not only glass for the iphone, but the right type of glass was to Jobs I nearly threw the whole thing out the window.  I was tired of Jobs promoting his closed system of computing and dissing on Bill Gates and his open system.  No man should be judged on the materials he sells, should he?  Shouldn't we be hearing more about Jobs's devotion to zen thinking or his frequent trips to Japan?  Or his family?

Anyway, I think it finally sunk in during a very transcendental moment in class yesterday.  I have been taking classes to learn how to be a good teacher, and yesterday we were focusing on the importance of school wide initiatives to improve academics and behavior.  As we discussed these techniques, in the back of my head I heard Steve Jobs say to me, "See- you need a closed system where things flow seamlessly from instance to instance."  It was weird.  I had just had a conversation with someone about how I don't care enough about computers and business to want to know how important Steve's corporate  and technological actions were.  I wanted to know about his thinking, the funny thing was, I just hadn't scratched below the surface of his preaching.  He wasn't just talking about computers and devices needing to exist within a closed controlled system which flows so seamlessly a six year old can operate it- he was talking about humanity.  Well, maybe that is taking it a bit far, but he was talking about more than computers and the Apple company (I think).  And if he wasn't, I like him more now imagining him hiding civil philosophy within an ipod.