Like a phoenix, rising...

It took me a long time to determine what to write about.  After all, it has been a long time since I posted in this blog and it didn't feel right to just dive right in without acknowledging that.  It isn't as if I've such a large following of readers that it really matters, but it matters to me.  Therefore, it matters.

I've had numerous conversations and deep thoughts of late that would make excellent blog posts, and I suspect that many of them will become just that as I move into my attempt to do this more regularly.  

I've talked late into the night about fear when it comes to allowing people into my inner circle.  This fear is borne out of the realization that letting them in gives them the power to impact my state of being.  I’m emotionally sensitive and I feel things very deeply.  This can be a dangerous combination.

I've talked about the nature of religion and belief and how I've come to peace with belief systems and organizations built on belief systems and the disparity that oft seems to lie between.  My own is at once deceptively simple and infuriatingly complex.  But I’m at peace with it, and on the edge of a path that might lead me into a journey of discovery.

I've thought a lot about my role as a teacher and how closely intertwined that is to who I am.  I cannot speak for other careers, but I know that for me, this calling is one that cannot be wholly separated from that emotional being I mentioned above.  Teaching exhilarates and exhausts me, excites and exasperates me.  Grading is a terrible time for me – each student who has stumbled, each who has failed is a failure of my own, whether that’s accurate or not.  I’m not sure which ones hurt more – those with wasted potential and squandered time, or those who are just misplaced and have not found what will motivate them.  Some of them so desperately need me and I live in constant worry that I will somehow let them down.  And when I do, it can be devastating.

I've thought a lot about the nature of leisure activities and what constitutes entertainment.  I've noticed a trend towards the bleak in much of what is popular these days and I used to struggle immensely with what makes me so different that I have no wish to watch shows where the biggest question of the week is who and how many will die and whether or not it was a fitting end for the serial killer and the meth addict.  For a long time, I wondered what was wrong with me, quite frankly, that I couldn't take pleasure in these sorts of stories.  And I wondered who was the more odd, me or the vast numbers of the population whose proclivity for this sort of entertainment was so disparate from mine.  And then I figured it out.

I've thought about these things and talked of many more.  I have grappled with friendships just born and those which seem always on the edge of failure.  I've talked about dark psychology and bright futures.  I've thought about poetry and birds, babies and the cold winter, plans and regrets.  I've talked about a world that is changing for the better in the face of tragedies which belie how far we have to go.  Tragedies and tears, love and light.  So many things rolling around inside my head and yet not one of them seemed fitting for the re-inauguration of a blog that means a good deal to me if not to anyone else in particular.  Instead, it seems more fitting to talk of why I am bringing it back to life.

I love to write is one reason; this goes without saying, I’m sure.  The other main reason is that I spend ten months of the year actively feeling disingenuous.  I teach my students to read and to write and yet I do not do enough of either to make it anything more than “Do as I say and not as I do.”  It feels – and has felt – wrong.  I have half read books collecting dust, poems that only get written because I feel the pressure of an annual reading wherein I am in the spotlight and need words with which to fill the room.  This cannot stand.  So, when asked to build goals as part of my post-tenure review, I wrote this as my last goal:

Be a better practitioner of my own craft.

And so, here we are.  Come with me, if you will – and we shall see where my mind goes and whether or not it is of interest to you.  That said, I will leave you with the words of our beloved Maya Angelou, who so recently slipped her light away from the earth...

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Will you listen to my story?

This is Teaching...

As I sit here writing this, my students are reflecting on the paper that they wrote for our class today.  As they work, they will occasionally look up and make some sort of comment about the project, their state of mind, or the contents of what they are writing.  Sometimes, their comments have nothing to do with what they are writing about.  But they are working.  It is an eclectic group of students -- nursing, business, biology, music.  Only five students and the campus where I teach them is a half hour drive from the main campus.  The course sits at the end of a long day in which I've likely already taught three classes and attended at least one meeting.  Normally, this would be exhausting and three-hours dragging by in the painful way that only night classes can.  But not this time.  Not this time. I am teaching.

To really understand the scope of what I'm talking about, you have to understand that this class is an experiment - an introductory writing class that is half online and truncated to fit into a half a semester.  On some level, it feels like it is set up to fail - sped up, half-removed, tiny.  But, against all foreseeable odds, it is not failing.  It's working.  The students are engaged, active, thoughtful, funny, participatory, and alive.  I do not list these qualities as being somehow different from my other classes, really, I am looking at them solely on their own merit.  I can sum up by saying this: I leave after a fourteen hour day energized.  They are helping me shape this course into something that is actually useful for them and a place where, despite all the elements that made me expect failure, they can succeed.  This is teaching.

You see, none of them want to be here, really.  One of them admits to putting the course off for two years because he "doesn't like to write."  One student was struggling to make sense of what to write and how to write it and another told him, "we will help you."  They are supportive of each other in the face of their own intimidation, fear, insecurity, and doubt.  They stress.  They ask questions born from these feelings.  But, they ask questions.  They will interrupt me to ask a question that is maybe not entirely on task but is about writing and all the nuances of it.  They fret about doing well.  They raise eyebrows at the amount of work and the time period in which they have to complete it -- but then they nod and dig in.  They panic that they can't do it all, except then they do.  This is teaching.

It is not perfect; sometimes, in the online portion of the class, there are more crickets than I would like to hear.  But, then again, that is also partially my fault.  We are all on a leaning curve here, and sometimes we slip down a little bit as we try to find our way.  They are easily distracted...but also easily reigned back in.  This is teaching.

This is teaching.  And I am grateful.

Unexpected Gems…

Those of you who are teachers will understand this moment perfectly. Those of you who aren't have still probably experienced a time when something wholly unexpected but also wholly welcomed happened in the course of doing what you always do. Let me explain.

I'm currently part of a small group of faculty who are teaching a pilot version of our second semester writing course. Instead of it being centered on reading and studying literature, we're moving the course to be argument and research based. Students need more instruction in writing for an academic setting and the English department is trying to be the flagship in moving that direction. So, in these pilot courses, students are working on a big project that will sustain them through a substantial research project and beyond. A couple of the sections are focusing on a very specific issue -- that of global climate change. Now, anyone who knows me (and specifically knows me as a teacher) knows that I really don't like controversial issues and politics. I think they are important, of course, but I've never felt comfortable seeking out the inherent conflict and debate that are part of those issues. So, in the classroom, I tend to find other ways to teach skills like research and critical thinking and argument. So, for my own version of the pilot, I decided to go broad and bank on the fact that students would be able to find something of interest in a broad topic and have the opportunity to seek out or avoid political debates according to their desire. The broad topic I chose to focus on is Community. Being that we are at a community college and the students and I are engaged in a 'forced community' within the classroom, it seemed perfect. There are so many places you can go when looking at all the communities you are in, how they function or don't function, how they struggle, what their goals and values are, and what you do when two of your communities conflict. In short, it seems like the possibilities are inexhaustible.

Since I'm working on some of this stuff from a very new perspective, I decided to start with what's known as a 'diagnostic essay'. This horrifically named beast is simply a writing prompt that gets students engaging with the course content while providing the instructor with some basic ideas about backgrounds and general writing ability. I usually ask students about their experiences with literature or have them reflect on their strengths and weaknesses in their writing. This time, however, I decided to go more general. I asked students two questions, with no intention that they should link them. The first question was "What is argument" and was meant to touch on the writing side of the class. We'd be looking at the elements of classical argument and I wanted them to start down the path of thinking about that definition in addition to the immediate mental image of people shouting at each other. The second question was "What is community" and that one was to touch on the content side. Sitting in a class at community college thinking about what community was a great way to start the process of critical thinking and finding ways to put themselves into the formal conversations happening all around them.

Many of the essays were two separate thoughts – one about argument and one about community, which is entirely what I expected and took no issue with. A few students, however, actually started to join the two terms and as I read these, I began to see that there was much more going on here that I had perhaps originally thought about or intended. These are the moments that awaken the hearts of teachers and remind them of why they are teaching. These are the gems in what would otherwise be an ordinary assignment – satisfying, but not remarkable in a larger sense. This sense of joy and discovery was culminated in one sentence by one student and it has completely changed how I look at this course. I'm not sure anyone outside the context of the course and my experiences with it will get it completely. But, let me preface by saying that my interaction with the course (not the students themselves) has been rocky. There's been quite a bit of soul-searching and self-doubting struggle as I tried to figure out if I could even TEACH it. You see, unlike some other professions, teachers often get very worked up about whether or not what we are doing is valid, useful, and sustainable for the students; for many, teaching is not so much a job as an entire way of existing that is ever-present. I may not always be analyzing your grammar, but I'm always a teacher in some way or another. My students are always with me. So, anyway, suffice it to say that I'd been agonizing over the course and when I finally sat down to read the very first assignment I had given on the very first day, I realized that somehow, I had asked the right questions. As I said, it can best be illustrated by a single sentence in a single essay, and this is what the student said:

"Although an argument is often what pulls and separates people apart, it's a community that brings them together" - M. Alfieri

In that one sentence lies the key to teaching the course. There are places to go from here, questions to ask, statements to challenge, waters to muddy – but that one sentence is enough for me to see beyond the next class meeting and see where we are going and many of the paths by which we might get there. This is learning that goes both ways across the proverbial desk. And that is what teaching is all about.

Teacher Secrets…

I went back to work last week and as I realized that the month was ending and I needed that last blog for the month, I thought that writing about 'going back' might be interesting. I remember those days when I was in school – the excitement, the nervousness, the hopes, and the fears. Funny thing is, I still have those same feelings now. Every semester. I look forward to meeting a whole new group of people, I get nervous going into class the first day, I hope that the semester will be successful, I fear that I will mess something up. Just because I'm the one with the chalk, or white board marker, doesn't make me any less susceptible to those feelings. In fact, they are somewhat magnified, I think. I see 130 or so students and I want each and every one of them to succeed. I will have and hold deadlines, I will push them, I will grade them firmly but fairly, I will hold fast to my expectations and my requirements.

But here's my dirty little secret.

Although it is not perhaps pedagogically sound, I want the students to like me and I want them to like my course. The reasons for this ARE pedagogically sound for the most part – in addition to simply the fact that I'm human and, therefore, a social animal. Many of the students that come into Freshman English or Introduction to Literature are carrying a lot of educational baggage. The following is not true for all of them of course, but it is true for many. A lot of them have spent so many years being told that they are terrible writers and that they can't do it that it has been completely internalized. Not only do they not like to write or read, but they sincerely believe they are incapable of doing either successfully. I can't tell you the number of times I've held a diagnostic ESSAY in my hands that reads "I can't write." Oh, the irony. Even when they believe (accurately or not) that they are good writers, there's still something defeated in them before we even start. They seem to believe that they are good writers in spite of what they've been taught, not because of it. So, I want them to like me and like the class. I want them to see that I am not the enemy and that the class does not have to be the stuff of nightmares. The best things I can hear as that first class lets out is "This is going to be fun class" or "This is a cool English class."

When they say that, I know that the demons have receded just a little bit. I know that they are ready to work.

Now I just have to hold on to them.

I, Resolved

So, the New Year arrived just the other day, came to the world in the usual way….and this year, I decided that I would share my resolutions.  Resolution is an interesting word, if we break it down:  to re-solve – to solve again – to find another way.  I don’t think my life is particularly problematic, so the ‘solve’ is interesting, but I like the idea of finding another way to get my life accomplished, as it were.  I don’t know as writing them down will have a monumental impact on the likelihood of them becoming more than a January fad, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Here, then, is a list of how I will 'solve my life again'…

1. Lose weight – I know, I know.  I could not be much more cliché than this.  That does not, however, make me any less earnest in my desire to do so.  I went through the trauma of surgery to remove extra weight from my back, and yet I’ve put on extra pounds elsewhere that can’t be doing my back or general health any good.  I’m unhappy with the physical form my body has taken and so I’m going to fix it.  I’m not doing this to look good – I’m doing it to feel good.  To that end, I will work out for 30 minutes at least five days a week and I will endeavor to eat more fruits, vegetables, grains, and non-red meats.  I will be more aware of whether or not I’m actually hungry when I eat and I will be mindful of portion control.  I will not go insane or crazy, I will not develop an eating disorder.  I will simply eat better and get myself back into a shape (literally) that I am happy with.  Sensible and realistic – those are key. 
2. Read more – As an English professor, I often feel guilty because I don’t read as much as I should.  The problem with me picking up a book is that I will often not put it down until it is finished.  That tends to be a problem when I’m in my office, or supposed to be sleeping, or I have countless other things that need accomplishing.  The result is that I don’t read at all and this makes me sad.  It also feels disingenuous to expound on the benefits of reading to my students when I don’t do so nearly as much as I should.  So, I’m going to fix that, too.  Like losing weight, however, I’m going to exercise portion control.  As wonderful as it can be to lose oneself in another world, that’s not a practical way to balance that world with this other one that I have to actually live in.  So, I resolve to read for 30 minutes every day (or until the end of the chapter that I am in the middle of when the 30 minute mark hits). 
3. Write More – See the rationale for reading...same thing.  I have a blog now, as you may have noticed, and in 2010 I wrote in it three times a month beginning with the very first month of the blog's life.  That was pretty manageable.  This year, I am going to set my goal as four times a month – once a week.  And I’m going to endeavor to write more on the side, as well.  I have half-finished projects and poems that would like to be published and I need to work on nurturing my inner writer and DO something with those writings.  I have no specific, measurable goal* for this one other than blogging four times a month, but I think that’s okay.

If I had to sum up these three resolutions and what they represent, I could simply say that I want to do more of everything.  In short, I want to do more of the things I love and I want to feel my best while doing them - reading, writing, eating better, and exercising are easily tracked and easily monitored.  But it goes beyond such 'simple' endeavors.  I want to exercise my mind and my creativity, I want to be active, I want to complete home projects on the house I love, I want to explore new places, cultivate friendships, celebrate my family.  I want to be in this world.  In this moment.  Dancing on the edge of making this a sadder post than I originally intended, I feel that this idea of Doing is absolutely vital.  There is so much about the wider world that saddens me and leaves me heartbroken.  My overall well-being depends on me moving in my own world in a way that keeps me alive, vibrant, and as happy as I can be in a world that I simply cannot fix.  That I cannot 'solve again'.  So, I resolve to do just that...and perhaps I can fix some of the world in the process.

That is all.  Let’s see how well I do.

Happy New Year.

-T

* for those in academia with me, I humbly apologize for tainting this post with the idea of 'measurable goals' -- it seems we cannot escape certain concepts, even when we want to... 

Fun with Language, II

As a writing teacher and a lover of language, there are always things that are the earmarks of problematic writing.  Any writing educator will tell you that you cannot correct or even point out every single wrong in a paper or it would crush the already fragile confidence of a standard student.  Especially the community college student in an entry-level writing course.  These students have been told they can’t write for so long that they will write a two page essay explaining how they can’t write and be completely unaware of the irony of that.

So, we learn to address the bigger issues, target some of the smaller ones, and take it in small doses and move slower than the writer and perfectionist in us wants to move.  There are some big ticket items that I’m sure most (if not all) writing teachers will address, of course.  We would be remiss if we did not talk about thesis statements and transitions, for instance; additionally, many of us probably address sentence level things such as run-ons and fragments.  Beyond that, however, I would imagine that many of us have our ‘pet peeves’ – the things that fall under the more minor errors (in the big scheme of things) that we always seem to gravitate towards when working on feedback for a student.  Comma splices, dangling participles, passive voice, and the like are nails on a chalkboard and we hone in on them as if fixing this one small thing will open countless doors for students as they move deeper into the academic world.  And who knows, honestly...perhaps it will.

One of these items for me is the use of second person.  It’s my own personal crusade to rid student writing of inappropriate uses of the word ‘you’.  Note I say inappropriate – there are times when it’s a great writing device, but the problem is that students were taught to never, ever, under penalty of agony and pain, use ‘I’ in an academic paper.  So, where they would say “there is no greater joy than to hold my son” becomes “there is no greater joy than to hold your son.”  Now, as previously discussed in this blog, I don’t have children and, at this point in my life, I don’t plan to ever have them.  Now, it isn’t exactly insulting, but it’s not a very appropriate comment to make about someone whom you don’t know very well.  I am a fairly happy person and I’ve experienced heart-deep joy in my time – and it wasn’t with the child I don’t have.  Students do this all the time – one of the most telling moments for me was when a student wrote a paper arguing for stricter drunk driving laws and he told me how I would feel as a victim of such a driver – and he was wrong.  What he described did not fit my situation, and I had been there.  It only took the introduction for the student to alienate me and irritate me.  It was not my most comfortable grading moment.  Most uses of it are fairly innocuous, however, with students telling me what I expect when I read a story or what I see when I walk into their bedroom (Don’t panic – I’ve only seen this in a paper where they explore identity by describing a place).

For these more light-hearted uses, I’ve been known to write things in the margins like “I DO think that?  How do you know?!” or “Should I be worried that you can read my mind?” and I’m not sure that this is tremendously right of me to do, but my tendency towards sarcasm gets the better of me.  If it’s any consolation, though, I add a smiley afterwards.  And let’s be honest, my students expect sarcasm from me at this point...

There are also uses of it beyond the classroom and I tend to employ a healthy dose of sarcasm then, too.  It happens all the time in everyday speech.  Listen to those around you, and I’m sure you’ll find you’re doing all sorts of things of which you weren’t aware.  “When you walk into the store,” ”When you order at McDonald’s,” “If you hold your iPhone in a certain way, “You should get your first prostate exam when you are 40” and all sorts of fun things that, quite frankly, don’t apply to you.

Or is that me?

Bright out of Dark...

I almost stopped being a writer a few years back.

Through a series of accidents and incidents, I lost a great deal of what I'd written due to, of all things, hardware failure and a healthy dose of human error.  It's the story I tell my students about why they should back up everything.  I should have known better, of course, but what it really boiled down to is a heartbreaking incident that nearly made me set aside my metaphorical pen for good.  The very thought of trying to refill the annals of my work (whether or not it was good work is largely beside the point) made my heart ache.  A keen sense of loss that is hard to explain.  But, this is not the story of that heartache...just the unintended positives that I never would have expected.

I'll use an incident or two to explain....

My dissertation was one of the things that was lost -- not that I don't have numerous hard copies, but the very thought of trying to turn that back into digital format made my fingers hurt.  Over 200 pages.  I felt exultation when I completed it and defended it, but that did not mean I wanted to have to recreate the whole thing so I could archive it digitally.  I would never be  able to transcribe my 30-year-old writing without my 37-year-old self editing and changing it.  So, I had to make do with the drafts and cobbled together chapters that I had saved, for some reason, somewhere else.  Fast forward a few years to a September afternoon of helping my brother move and I happened to mention that I wished I knew what had happened to the mini-disks I had with my dissertation on them (those, too, had vanished).  Imagine my joy when my brother casually mentioned that he had one of them.  There it was...a tiny silver disk with the culmination of 12 and a half years of college and countless late nights and desperate moments in neat, compact, preservable form.  It was like trying on a favorite sweater and finding it still fit.  Or pulling up the couch cushions and seeing that missing earring.  Joy.

More recently, over dinner, I was telling my parents about the "Bones in the Dirt" story I posted a few blogs ago and how my sister-in-law told me I needed to write more of it because she was hooked.  As I was talking about how I wasn't sure where I was going with the story next, my husband said something that reawakened the pangs of loss again.  He reminded me of a story that I have never truly forgotten since when I wrote it and then read to him early on in our relationship.  It was a good story, which is not something I am often comfortable saying (I dislike most of what I write most of the time).  Though, at this point, I'm honestly not sure if I think what I wrote is good (I remember little of it) or I simply like where the story came from.  It was inspired by a barn over in Pittsford.  Every time they put a "For Sale" sign on it, someone would spray paint 'Leave it Alone' on it.  My imagination took that and ran with it -- loving the mystery of it all.  Eventually it did sell and was put on the register of historic places and thus, I'm sure, the vandal was appeased.  The story I wrote started with the sale and the vandal and went from there.  Like "Bones in the Dirt," however, it was unfinished.

When I read it to my husband years ago, I seem to recall him actually getting frustrated because the story was incomplete and he wanted to know what happened.  He reiterated this at dinner the other night and I found myself amazed that he had remembered it and harbored that frustration over so many years.  I began wondering if, somehow, I still had the story somewhere.  I dared hope.  That level of emotional investment from an outside was worth exploring, I thought.  So, the next evening we looked and looked, but to no avail -- this was before Gmail, before the cloud, before I backed things up.  As far as I could tell, the story was gone. 

And I missed it.  I wasn't sure if I could recreate it.

Then, on a whim, I emailed a friend to whom I had been in the habit of sending things I had written.  His first reply was disheartening.  It doesn't sound familiar.  My heart sank and I sighed that deep sigh of resignation.  It was that moment when the heart knows that all hope is gone.  I wondered if I could recreate it.  I wondered....and then I got a second email....

"It wasn't a building that had aged well, standing stately and tall as the years wrapped it in coats of age.  It was merely a barn with barely the strength to stand and it looked out over one of the busiest roads in Glenville..."

That was the first line.  He found the hard copy and typed in just that first line.  At this moment I'm waiting for it to arrive in the mail.  My old friend.  That line of email was like getting a phone call from someone whom I thought had died.  It is such a powerful feeling and one that has been repeated from time to time over the years as things I had stowed away somewhere made their presence known again.  As the lost was found.  I may never find it all, but I love those moments when something is rediscovered.  If I could go back and save it all, I would in a heartbeat, but since I cannot, I will take these moments of joy with gratitude and joy.  And, perhaps more importantly, I will keep picking up that metaphorical pen and welcoming the Muse when she comes.

This writer has more to say, and will not let the lost words silence those not yet spoken...

-T

"Bones in the Dirt"

Time to do something different.  Since I want to use this place as inspiration to start writing again, I thought it might be time to pull out something I worked on once and then set aside.  What you're about to read is part of a short story or a novel or something.  I'm not sure.  Jack interest me, the business deal going down interests me, but I'm not really sure where this is leading.  There's something powerful about bones in the dirt, it would seem...

In any event, read if you will, comment if you like, but above all...I hope you enjoy.

***

            Jack slid across the booth and leaned against the corner, feeling a cold draft on the back of his neck from the window.  From his seat, he could see the whole place, including the front entrance and the swinging door that led to the kitchen.  The place was crowded tonight – there was a stream of constant movement from families, couples, old folks, and groups of young friends.  There were even a few loners like himself.  As he watched, he stifled a yawn.  He was tired.  He’d spent much of the day getting ready for tonight, and he hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours the last two days.

            A perky blond came over and gave her eight-hour-shift smile and asked if he wanted to try the baked salmon.  He declined, but ordered a Jack and Coke.  His friends always laughed at this, ribbing him to order a “Me and Coke.”  He hadn’t thought this was funny the first time, or the 900th time they’d said it.  Then again, there was precious little to laugh at these days.

            As the waitress headed off, weaving between the coats and chairs, Jack ran a hand through his sandy brown hair and shifted in the booth, his jeans squeaking lightly on the vinyl seat.  He looked at his watch and then up at the door.  She was late.

            That stirred up a thousand misgivings and doubts about whether she’d show at all, but he pushed these dark thoughts aside.  Of course she’d come.  It was early, the place was crowded and well-lit.  No reason not to.  Everyone knew this was the busiest place in town and she said she lived nearby.  As he continued to look absently at the crowds around him, a woman walked in.  She shook off the cold as she looked around and for a moment, he thought it might be her.  But, she waved and smiled in recognition at a guy at the bar, moving quickly to join him.  Jack couldn’t quite suppress the sigh.

            The minutes ticked by.  The waitress returned with his drink and he sat sipping it slowly, alternatively watching the bubbles in the glass and the door each time the small bell caught his attention above the din.  About fifteen minutes after the hour, the door opened for the twelfth time and as soon as he looked up, the woman who had entered looked his way.  Somehow, he knew it was her.

            She was small; young looking.  She wore a long dark coat that must have been tailored, and dark gloves which she was absently-mindedly removing as she spoke to the maitre’d.  She unbuttoned her coat, and when he saw the red sweater he raised a hand and nodded to her.  She began to head towards him.  This was it.

            He stood as she approached and held out a hand.  She took it firmly in her own and shook it exactly the right number of times before releasing it and sliding into the booth opposite where he’d been sitting.  She said nothing.  He took his own seat and for a moment, the two merely observed one another.  She had reddish hair and dark eyes; her skin was the color of coffee with too much cream.  He idly wondered what she thought of his dark goatee and the thin rimmed glasses he’d just gotten.  He dismissed the thought and leaned back, waiting for her to break the silence.

            “Nice place,” she said in a voice deeper than he’d expected.  She looked around, her expression one of approval.

            “It serves,” he replied, realizing that her meaning of nice likely had little to do with the ambiance.  Then again, neither did his reply.

            The waitress came back at this moment and his companion ordered a gin and tonic on the rocks and the waitress bustled off to the bar.  They fell back into silence, still appraising, still waiting for the humming tension to break.  When it came, she sipped her drink thoughtfully and then took a deep breath and spoke.

            “The item which we discussed is of great value to more than myself.  You must realize that.”  This seemed half a plea and half an admonition.  He nodded.

            “Of course.  How could I not?  I’m no expert, but I know enough to realize we’re talking about more than just bones in the dirt.”  She coughed delicately and he swore her cheeks flushed faintly.  He wondered what he’d said, then mentally shrugged and waited for her to enter into what he knew would be a series of intense negotiations.  He did not intend to relinquish his find easily.  He cocked his head to one side as she inhaled slowly, as if picking her words carefully.

            “Bones, indeed.”  She was stalling.  He could almost see the gears turning in her head as she looked first at him, and then idly at the crowd around them.  When her eyes came back to him, he saw a resolve there.  “This is not the place to talk further.”

            He raised one eyebrow and looked at her thoughtfully, leaning back against the corner formed by the wall and the booth.  It was her who had been insistent that the initial meeting be in a public place.  He had been intrigued enough by her tone to forgo the usual channels.  As he watched her, Jack felt a vague sense of unease ripple through his awareness – the insistence that something here wasn’t right.  Maybe it was the resolute wariness now etched in her features.  Or maybe, he thought wryly, it’s nothing.

            “Sure,” he said, forcing himself to sound casual as he returned her gaze.  “What did you have in mind?”

            “Now,” she said, still with the clipped tone of having made a decision that she was now running with.  “You have a car?”

            He nodded, a faint amusement rapidly replacing the unease from just a moment before.  He threw a twenty from his money clip onto the table and reached for his distressed leather jacket.  She stood and pulled on her own jacket and waited for him to lead the way.

            It had snowed while he was inside and the swirling chill cut through the one drink he’d had while inside.  He shuddered once, then led them briskly to the black Jag parked across the quiet street.

The First Entry

I've always wanted to start a blog, but I was never overly convinced I had anything of import to say. Recently, I decided that I didn't really care if and it didn't really matter if my musings were meaningful or earth-shattering. I just want to write and share some of the strange things that go through my head on any given day. I've been encouraged to go ahead with it by people whose opinions I value, as well, and that's always a good motivator.

One of the reasons I want to blog is that I have always been told I think too much (usually about the wrong things at the wrong times), and over the years I learned not to share a lot of it on account of not wanting to be ridiculed for being stranger than I was already assumed to be. (That sentence was convoluted). It's the same thing that made me stop using big words in everyday conversations and hide the books I was reading. These days, for whatever reason, I embrace my 'geekiness' and so a blog suddenly seems like a great idea. I have people in my life who genuinely seem curious about my stream of consciousness, no matter how cold or deep the water might be. Or how full of crawdads.

Being reasonably sure that there are people out there who are genuinely interested in what I have to say is, as I said, a great motivator. So, here I am. I don't know how often I will post or even what I will ultimately write about, but I can promise that it will always be honest and it will always be a reflection of who I am (for better or worse). I'm going to attempt to write fairly regularly and I'm going to attempt to not over-think the process. I am a perfectionist and tend to be editing right up until the moment I'm supposed to be doing something with whatever it is I'm writing. I'm going to endeavor NOT to do that here. Too much. Really. I don't want to polish it until it has a hole in it.

In any event...thanks for stopping by and thanks for reading. Hope you come back. :)