Slow going

I am on my way to class and just wanted to say... Whew what a week!

I have gotten in 2 traffic tie ups on days when I left especially early so I could get some extra AM work done pre-class.

The pic above is what I got to look at for an hour and 15 mins over the course of 8 miles.

Today's traffic jam was because a gas tanker blew up. They actually shut down 240. It was intense. Of course I needed to use the bathroom... Haha, oh well. Got to school on time and dry!

Btw. Yes, that is a "W the president" sticker on the guy's helmet.

Something good this way comes

I made homemade chicken pot pie instead of working on my syllabus. That is just how dedicated to procrastination I am.

School starts this week, and I feel pretty good about what I have planned for the first day. Ask me about the semester, and I will have to respond with a blank and slightly apologetic stare.

Friends are good, kid is good(ish), work (will be) is good, and so is everything else. Reading books, watching shows, living outside the bubble for a change. Looking for a Memphis crib and a school for Nathan occupies the not-busy-writing-a-syllabus time.

Somedays I still feel like whistling past the cemetery in order to ward off the evil that I just know is lurking around every corner. The paranoia is not where it was, and that is the best of all the good that has come my way lately.

Weather report/Time table

Without a suggestion or a warning my life has gotten a little full of new gadgets. I feel like I was pretty comfy somewhere in 1997 and suddenly I have been morphed into this land of 2010. Actually this an overly dramatic way of announcing the arrival of my new phone and my new lap top. Stop rolling your eyes. On some level the afore mentioned time travel is actually kind of true.

All of this has been said just so you know that my updates may be a little more regular, the pics may be of a slightly better quality, and the content may become slightly diminished as well. I will do my best to keep that last one to a minimum.

The other thing I keep thinking is just how freaking grown up I feel and how less and less cool that is. Transition is the name of the game, and change is the fuel to this fire. The coming semester is like the SBT version 2.0 that I have been longing to deliver. This week will see me working on a syllabus in a way that I haven't ever done before. Nathan also starts phase one of his orthodonture which is very intense.

Those winds of change are kicking up a storm, but I do feel like I am in a good place to weather it this go around.

2009 retrospective thing

I have always been a "where was I this time last year/month/week?" kind of a person. So, without feeling the need to analyze or justify that mentailty, I am doing that same sort of inventory as this year/decade draws to a close. Trite and cliche, I know, and well, I am doing it anyway.

I was de-freaking-pressed last year. I mean, I don't know how I made it through! Only, I actually do know, and now I want to say what I am grateful and thankful and hopefully understand and value these things even more.

This past year I depended on my friends. The people who loved me when I could not and would not love myself loved me when I was pretty bitter and unloveable. Today as I stand in the present wedged between the past and the future, I know that the buddies who love me today and loved me yesterday will love me tomorrow. That is a huge, huge, tiny thing that I appreciate more and more everyday.

This past year I went from a job I tolerated to a job I love, and I know that I am not defined by the place that signs the check or the title I have. I LOVE what I do, and I will always find a way to do it. Paid, not paid, professional, unprofessional, everyday I learn that I really believe that written communication is the last equal footing there is in this world, and I will teach others how to be amazing at this while remaining true themselves. Grammar doesn't mean anything if the words aren't grown from the soil of individual thought.

Tonight I am sitting in a room overlooking the cold Florida beach. Today I sat in the sun and just giggled at the about face my life has made from last year to now. Next year may be better, it may be worse, but every year teaches me something I thought I already knew in a way that quietly knocks me down every time.

Happy New Year.

Christmas card

It's just a funny pic that continues to make me laugh every time I see it. That's all.

Because I have a stack that needs grading, a book that needs averaging, and a syllabus that needs writing, I am going to take some time to update my blog!

I am pretty content with recent events. Survived the Shit Storm of 2009 and have prepared for the impending January crisis over taxes that will generally happen somewhere around the New Year. No news there.

Loving the car, ready for the license plate to be registered, loving the new bank, and secretly giving the bird to every Regions bank I pass.

Gearing up for basketball with buds and the kiddo. Needing to go get tickets today. Hoping I don't forget.

Sure there is a song that I could listen to for inspiration. Wishing I was done or at least in the possession of a magic wand... I have been wanting one for ages. Ages!

Hug a reindeer, kiss a kid, eat a cookie, and have a happy holiday season.

A Rose by any other name

There she is!

Today is another day of productive grading and friendship in Nashville. I swear I don't live here!

Isn't it funny that every trip to Nashville, every weekend of the last three weeks, has been made in a different car? Each trip made was unsure of the next day and unsure of the coming week, and yet here I am! There is a new car in the lot where my junked old car once sat. If someone had told me last week about where I would be this week, would I have believed that person? I have no idea. I know that anything is possible and that taking the first step is how it is done.

Saying it again, knowing that I have said it already, I feel like such a grown-up.

Question

Alright, think about this. Are you who you are or who you want to be? Seriously, I mean, I am 30 years old, and this seemingly amateur question keeps rolling around in my head. Are we on a road to self discovery or are we on a quest to be some kind of super-self, forged from the baser fires of human desire? I really don't know!

I am pretty sure it is the knowledge of the difference and not some sort of cosmic, judgemental scale that places me here to ask this question. No one answer is any better than the other. Option A or Option B do not determine your or my place in the world. I guess I just want to know which journey am I on? Am I looking in to be out or am I looking out to be in?

Doubtful that I am the first to ask this question but sure that I am asking it of myself for the first time, I am going to go with I am who I want to be, but that person is dependent on who I have been shaped to be thus far.

That is not a fence type answer, I think it leans toward who I want to be more than who I am.

The coffee isn't ready yet, and my fingers feel clumsy this morning. Spending time with someone else's family later today, and I secretly pretend that they are mine. Not such a secret now.

No news on the car. Progress is being made. Listening to tapes in the old red car. Feels like high school. Probably the subconscious source of such nascent introspection.