Friends

I need to keep reminding myself that I can't forget my friends. I get caught up in things, you know? I don't multi-task well. I mean, I can handle students and papers and curriculum, web sites, blogs, and wikis, because that's what I've been trained to do. But my personal life, that's another story.


I've been neglecting my friends lately. I'm horrible at Facebook, something I could attribute to a Gen X lag with all things tech, but for the fact that I'm pretty tech savvy- I can Twitter and Flickr and blog with the best of them, and that I have lots of friends who have fallen into the FB trap- some have even fallen and climbed out, a sort of FB rehab, if you will. So I guess it's not my age or my lack of technical acumen. It must be me.

I think at some point in your life your friends stop forgiving you your quirks and start resenting you for them. In the end, I'm sure they just stop being your friend. I mean, life is very short and I know how I feel when I'm being ignored. So here I am, at the end of February, having not spoken to dear friends for over two months now, and I'm feeling pretty low.

I resolve, then, to stay in touch. I think I have to, because a friendless, forty something year old man is just sad.

Hey, I know. Maybe there's a Facebook group that can help me...

What Do Teachers Make?

Found this video of Taylor Mali, slam poet, teacher, voiceover artist, reading his poem entitled "What Teachers Make." Pretty sharp, strong, this slam poem is now at the level of the iconic. Nice to listen to, though, especially in these times when budgets are tight and some people wonder what we even do with our 180 days of work a year.

Aviary

Aviary is just cool. I made this mix with my daughter using this image/sound editing software...it's addicting!

hannahs mix.egg on Aviary.

Check out my article on Aviary at TechTimes (http://ves.neric.org/techtimes/index.html).

Pre-Valentine's Day Signage

Appropriate. Truth. Love.
(Thank you, Gaping Void)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Man I like Ray Carver stories. "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" is just one of those fantastic Carver rides into perceived normalcy, faulty reality, and the beautiful thing is we get to go with the messed up individuals that inhabit those weird places. Here is the brunt of the issue: what is the nature of true love? Here's our protagonist's answer, in its glory.

"’What do any of us really know about love?’ Mel said. ‘It seems to me we’re just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don’t doubt it. I love Terri and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of love I’m talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day today caring about the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed.’ He thought about it and then he went on. ‘There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me. Then there’s Ed. Okay, so we’re back to Ed. He loves Terri so much he tries to kill her and he winds up killing himself.’ Mel stopped talking and swallowed from his glass. ‘You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before I love Terri and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of love I’m talking about now. Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day to day caring about the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed.’ He thought about it and then he went on. ‘There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me. Then there’s Ed. Okay, so we’re back to Ed. He loves Terri so much he tries to kill her and he winds up killing himself.’ Mel stopped talking and swallowed from his glass. ‘You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other. It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other. You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us—excuse me for saying this—but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, and have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love, we’re talking about, it would be just a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I’m wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don’t know anything, and I’m the first one to admit it.’"

Sometimes I read stuff like this and I want to just stop trying to put anything down on paper for fear of looking small in comparison. But then I remember that Carver started late, too, and he turned out stuff like this. That keeps me going.

Oh, Happy Valentine's Day...I guess.

Issuu

Trying a new publishing service for the school literary magazine. This is a trial.