I've cried in front of my students as I tried to find the words to thank them for being such wonderful human beings.

I've hugged so many people, listened to their summer plans and said good-bye to those who aren't returning.

I've fixed a glitch in the attendance records for one class.

I've graded everything and submitted final grades.

And now I am going away. Two glorious days on the Pacific Coast, sandwiched between two days of driving. And if it's open, I'll be stopping at Maryhill. Because it's packed with Rodins, and I cannot get enough of that man's work. I've always meant to visit the museum, and this trip would be a good opportunity to do just that.

Anyway, what with two days of driving and two days of R&R, I won't be taking the laptop. So don't expect to hear from me again until Monday evening at the latest (all day faculty meeting on Monday), though I might post Sunday, depending on when I get home.

Have a lovely weekend. I fully intend to.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was crazy. The day began with a 7:30am final and ended when I got home sometime around 6:30. I got a bunch of grading done, fit in a brunch/discussion about this semester and next semester with my teaching partner, actually proctored/participated in two finals and then collapsed. I wanted to do something creative and interesting with my evening, as a break from the school stuff, but I was too tired to think of anything. So I read. And talked to my brother on the phone for about an hour because he's in the area on a shoot. Hopefully I'll get to see him this evening.

Today is completely up to me. I have no commitments to anyone, no solid ones, anyway. I do have about 30 final exams to grade and a handful of papers that got turned in on Friday. And that's it. I also need to do some shopping and make reservations for a trip to the coast this weekend, I leave Thursday for three glorious days of being both not here and at the ocean. No responsibilities, no schedule. I'm hoping that will get me set up nicely to come home and start doing the huge amount of stuff I need to do this summer. Because, wow, do I have a lot to do before classes start again in the fall and my free time goes away.

I was actually thinking about not going because the preparation seems like so much work. I need to rent a car because ours will most likely be in the shop and it's a long drive and I'm not sure how I feel about going all that way alone to be alone, etc., and mostly because the weather on the coast is looking not so happy. Rainy and chilly. And then I looked at the forecast for here, and realized that it will actually be slightly nicer on the coast this weekend. Warmer by 5-10 degrees. So I'll be leaving first thing Thursday morning.

And now I'm off. Walking to campus because the weather is gorgeous and my schedule is open and I can. Grading, making photocopies and doing some more grading. Hopefully I'll be able to get all the stuff that needs doing done by mid-afternoon or so. I really don't want to spend the rest of my life grading, and I'm not sure I have the patience to do much more of it, really. Though the finals had several questions that involved making art and then examining/explaining the impulse behind it, so they should be fun to grade rather than work. I'd like to get it all done before I leave on Thursday, even though grades aren't due until a week from today. I just want it out of the way so I'm not thinking about it the whole time I'm gone. The whole point of the trip, after all, is to get away and focus on taking care of me and to maybe wash the sticky residue from the semester off in the surf.

I also used the help function for the platform I use. Absolutely help-free, it was. So I'm going to shoot an email off to them to see if they can assist me. Because when it comes to computers, I'm all about using the software and throwing my hands up in despair when it stops working. I am the world's greatest living example of a technological naif. If there weren't templates for these things, I'd still be using drums or semaphore or smoke signals or messages in bottles or something.

So please, accept my apologies. It's not you, so it must be me. I'll see if I can get it figured out.

**Update -- I made the only changes I could think of. If some kind soul would try it now?

1. State ::
Secrets, Secretary of, of the Union, union suit, underwear
2. Lively ::
free, fun, enjoyable, energetic, passionate
3. Valet ::
servant, furniture, Jeeves & Wooster
4. Traction ::
sand, tires, snow, melted
5. Official ::
parchment, forms, stamped, triplicate
6. Red hot ::
Chili Peppers
7. Powder ::
loose, translucent, setting makeup
8. Replies ::
answers
9. Flagrant ::
obvious, unavoidable, must be dealt with
10. Tweet ::
Sylvester

The sun is shining, I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, it's a lovely day and I'm going to go play in the garden.

Have a lovely Sunday!

I grow most of my veggies in pots on the back porch instead of in the ground. I can control things like pests & watering better that way. Every year I dump the old potting soil into various flowerbeds and scrub out the pots, rinse them with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to kill any lingering nasties and add new potting soil. I also have a special trick to both save on soil and keep the pots from becoming too heavy to move. I put three to six empty plastic water bottles in each one (the number of bottles depends on their size). So, since my tomatoes came on Wednesday (one each of Koralik, Glacier and a plum that I can't recall the name of right now), along with a Mammoth Sweet Basil, I spent a good chunk of the day getting the supplies I needed to plant them and cleaning out the pots.

It's so nice to look out onto the porch and see three little green teepees surrounding the tomato plants. And since I also cleaned out all of the other pots while I was working, they're all ready for new stuff too. I don't know what else I'll plant this year. I'll have to check out the farmer's market to figure out what else I'm going to grow.

The sad bit of this is that one of my pots had to be retired this year. A year or two before we left Portland, I bought a bunch of large-ish, plain terracotta pots from Home Despot. They're in three different sizes, all of them pretty big (three of them took about 2.5 cubic feet of potting soil today). I coated them inside and out with a waterproofing agent and then painted them all differently. The yellow pot with the blue rim and the mottled blue stripes wound around it lost about half of its exterior over the winter. Snow must have got into a crack and just forced its way through the pot. It's now only about half as thick as it needs to be in several places, and I just don't trust it to hold plants and soil.

What's funny is that it's not the pot I expected to lose first. Another one of them, this one yellow with green leaves, has had a big crack in it for two years now, but I keep managing to plant tomatoes in it. I'm betting this summer is its last gasp. Just as long as my tomatoes survive the season, that's all I care about.

If anybody has any suggestions for what I can do with the old, unuseable pots, I'd appreciate hearing them. I know they can't be composted, but I hate the idea of just tossing them.

Anyway, what with the pots I painted (in various patterns and combinations of yellow, pink and sky blue) and the other pots I've picked up along the way, one big, round low purple one that will hold salad greens and a square red one that is destined for the basil, the back porch looks pretty eclectic. Funky. But I kind of like it that way.

What can I say? I don't have much of that commmodity today.

This is one of my two portable timepieces. (The other is my cellphone.) I like this watch because I can attach it to a beltloop and always know what time it is if I'm teaching a class or leading a rehearsal in a clockless room (like a theatre space). The whistle is also handy, as it allows me to be heard through the loudest of acting exercises. I haven't found a use for the compass yet.

Today started with clothing-related disasters (more than one, yay!) and me getting to my office just after 8am. If that sounds incredibly lazy of me, just remember, please, that I don't have to be in the classroom until 9:30am and that I usually stay up until eleven or twelve working on any number of things. But I got everything done before class started and had time to read a final student paper that made me cry it was so sweet. Including the following line :

I may not remember who first taught me history, but I will always remember who taught me to respect myself.

Meaning my teaching partner and me.

Yeah, that makes the job more than worth it.

I must admit, I'm a scheduling genius, though. Because in two of my classes, this week is all about student presentations. So for five hours this week, instead of prepping and leading and teaching and running things, they get to do the teaching. They get to give their peers information and tell stories. That takes a HUGE load off of me.

Also? Last night and this morning I really pushed through the pile of grading and as a result, today I was able to give back Every. Single. Outstanding. Assignment in the class that had the most work ungraded. Now I just have to grade four group projects and twelve research papers in that class. Well, that and their extra credit papers. And their final projects. But I don't have to grade those yet, I can't grade those yet, not until next week. Because I won't see them until next week.

And in the class for which I co-teach two sections, I have graded all of their last major assignments and now I just have to --well, fuck. I forgot a set of things I have to finish up. Nope. I'm doing that in the morning. I'll just go in earlier. Shit. Anyway, I graded their last big thing, which they will get back tomorrow, and then I just have their finals and this other thing I forgot to finish grading (which won't actually take that long, I just have to do some math and enter the grades in the gradesheet) and these projects they turned in on Tuesday which I have decided they will not get back until their final. Because I'm not going to try to grade those tonight too. Dammit.

See? This, this is why I need some time for myself. Because I cannot keep track of everything I need to do if I don't get a break now and then. As it is, I began grading at 8am this morning, took a brief break to drive to school, and then worked steadily on various things until just now when I came home. That's an eleven hour day and I am done.

Even if I'm really not.

But. Tomorrow I teach until 12:30 and then I can grade all of the presentations I saw today and the various papers I received today and the stuff people turned in yesterday. And see Doubt in the evening. But I'm pretty sure I can get all of the still not graded stuff done tomorrow, and then this weekend I'll only have another two sets of presentations and a few more papers to grade. So I can focus on things like the yard and the tomato plants that came in the mail today. And maybe playing with the water soluble oil pastels I picked up at the university bookstore this evening on my "I'm done with that grading, I think I'll buy myself a present" kick.

And tonight? Tonight the evening stretches before me like a present. A present full of light and flowers and birdsong. How lucky am I?

At 9:30 I went to school for my office hours, chatted with my teaching partner, almost expired in my office where the temp started at 101°F when I opened the door and never got down to below 83° despite my opening every window and door I could get to on my floor, did a little organizing/straightening/prep, created a template for a brick made of paper, sent out various terribly important emails, taught, did some grading, went to rehearsal, met some more with my teaching partner, did a little more grading and then some photocopying and then had dinner while doing some more grading and suddenly it's 8pm. What the hell?

I knew it was a full day, but somehow it slipped right past me.

1. Thug ::
Hedonist, lug, louse.
2. Slurp ::
Burp (The Slurp & Burp is a local bar.), Seven Eleven
3. Alley ::
Cat, narrow, dark, bad idea.
4. Sweater vest ::
Geek; argyle; honey, no.
5. Targeted ::
Walmarted.
6. Snazzy ::
Cool, hip, funky, fancy, fly.
7. Oy! ::
vey, Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wimpy.
8. Jury duty ::
ugh.
9. Low fat ::
nasty. Just eat less of the good stuff and enjoy it.
10. Responsibility ::
Take it.

You know, this entire list makes me think of Popeye.

I get, by the way, that hedonists and thugs are not the same thing, by a long stretch. But that was the first word that popped into my head. Don't judge.

And speaking of judging...

I saw Urinetown last night. Have I mentioned before that I really don't like musicals very much? It had a beautiful set, and some of the numbers were really well done. There was some great acting. And some not so great acting. Most of the costumes were strong choices too, though there were a couple of misses.

It's just, well, I don't enjoy musicals. They're mindless. Most of them seem to have spines like, "Love is good" or "Don't hate each other." And the overarching theme of this one seemed to be "People are stupid. Except us, of course." Which pisses me off because I got the sense that the story attempted to get people to think about their lives and their choices but was limited by and ultimately not successful due to its 1) musical format and 2) snarky attitude. It was lecture-y and snide as opposed to truthful and honest, a fault I attribute almost entirely to the script.

Dave and I often leave the theatre arguing about or heatedly discussing the things we've seen. You can get a good sense of the quality of the play by noting the subject of our conversation. When it's a good show, we're arguing about the ideas, the story, the themes of it. Doubt, for instance, is also playing in town right now. My students who have seen it thus far (I have not yet) have all voiced the same frustration. "I need to know who's right!!! It's killing me to not know what really happened!!!" That's the sort of thing theatre does at its best, it makes you think about things in a new way, to discuss who is right or wrong and why that might be the case. It makes you look at sides other than the one you were originally standing on.

When it's not a strong show, our post-performance conversation is all about desperately trying to figure out why we didn't like it/weren't moved or provoked or stimulated by it. With Urinetown, we spent a good chunk of the walk home trying to figure out why we disliked the story so much. We weren't arguing passionately about how to fix things or why things were broken society-wise, we were instead picking apart the language and the choices. Not really what theatre practitioners want their audience to do post-performance.

All of this makes me sound like a theatre snob, I suppose. And maybe I am. I just know that when theatre works it is because it tells us something true about what it means to be human. It strikes a chord deep in the center of me that makes me thrum with recognition. I've only ever seen two musicals that did that for me: Porgy and Bess and Man of La Mancha. I haven't actually seen Les Mis or Miss Saigon or Wicked or Rent--I don't enjoy musicals, so I don't go out of my way to see them--so I don't know if those stories actually do speak truth. I just think it's harder to do when the focus is on spectacle rather than story, and by making characters sing out their emotions you're pretty much admitting right there that spectacle is your aim. It takes a very special kind of composer, I think, to force the spectacle to fit the story and not work the other way round.

Right. It's Sunday. My only commitment for the day (a rehearsal) was cancelled. The day is entirely mine to use as I see fit. I'm going to go play with paper and glue, I think.

I've got two photos from my archives today. Neither is a particularly beautiful shot, but I think it's hard to take a photograph of a 2-D object and really do it justice. Photography, to my mind, is mostly about the play of light and shadow across forms, and flat objects like signs just don't work well. Plus, you can't even take advantage of patterns, since they're pretty uniform things, signs.

I haven't posted this first sign before. I took it last November at the condo my family rented in McCall over the Thanksgiving week. A little background. McCall is a woodsy resort town on a lake. The condo is "rustic." The living room space is tiny with sliding glass doors that open onto a small, covered cement porch next to a "creek" (which is in quotation marks because it's basically a windy little indentation lined with river rock). The unit is carpeted inside, except for linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms and the small slate platform upon which the obligatory woodstove rests. This sign? Is stuck to the wall next to the woodstove.

Um. Okay. I wonder how many tenants split their logs indoors before someone felt that a notice just had to be posted.

This second shot is from our neighborhood. I took it two summers ago after Dave and I noticed the "typo" on one of our walks to the nearest (and best) Mexican restaurant in town. It's on the corner of East B Street.

Not a new error, that one. Imagine having your misspellings more or less carved in stone for all the world to see, including the generations that come after you.

It isn't just physical exhaustion, either. Nope. Because I am physically tired, but the majority of my weariness comes from the center of my being. I may be burnt out, worn out, tired to the bone, but it's the center of my bones, the vibrating core of every cell that needs stillness. I'm soul tired.

And it doesn't help that it is snowing. Again. On April 25.

Last night, despite the need to learn lines, despite the fact that I only have five more sets of assignments to grade (and one of them is articles that I just have to mark +5 on), last night I sat on the couch and did nothing. I just let my mind wander and surfed the net and did nothing. So this morning I'm not only tired, I'm also wracked with guilt. For not doing all of the things I needed to do.

Of course, the main thing I need to do is take care of myself. I haven't done that in ages, actual geologic ages, it feels like, and now I'm not sure I can remember how. I need to recharge, to replenish, to begin to refill the well I've been dipping such large amounts of myself from for so long. And I know I can get there. I just also know that it's going to be a hellish slog to the end.

One more commitment is done tonight.

One class exits the I have to plan for this stage and goes into the final grading stages after today.

One class is done with the weekly writing assignments. (I don't know if they've realized it yet.)

One show closes on Sunday (so I need to see it before then).

One show closes next weekend (so I can wait to see it until later).

One class has one more set of assignments and then a final exam that will actually be kind of fun to grade. I've had more input on this one than on past exams--by my own choice. I didn't leave it all up to my teaching partner this time, instead, I wrote half of it and sent it to her. It's going to involve doing art on the page along with answering more standard kinds of test questions.

So we're coming to the end of what has proven to be a very difficult year. My goal is to not do what I have done every summer since I came here and just collapse for three months, lying on the couch like a slug, hating myself and life and wishing I was dead while still practicing avoidance. I have some very real and necessary (to my happiness) goals I'd like to accomplish over the course of this summer. To get there, I need to be healthy. Which means resting.

I've discovered that I cannot rest here. I feel like I "should" be doing something while I'm home--the yard, the kitchen, the garage--so what I need to do is go away from here for three to four days, go to someplace where I have no obligations to other people because even the people I love trigger my "I must give and give and give to you" impulse. Someplace where it's not only okay if I lay around in the sunshine (or the hotel room) and wallow in not doing things, but where it's expected and maybe even encouraged.

London was lovely for that, but that was four exhausting months ago. Turns out, I need to do it again. Especially since I came home not really finished with the resting up and was launched into a new semester long before I was ready.

I need to get back in touch with the voices in my head and my heart and my arms and my legs and my gut, to step away from all of the things screaming "Do this!" and spend some time in the moment. My moment, not anybody else's. I don't expect I'll come back from that all fixed and completely healed, but I do think I might come back better. Closer to center. And if I can begin making my way back to the center of me without distractions, I'll have a better shot at getting there even among the distractions of living. Because I'll be pointing in the right direction for a change.

I've noticed this about my life before. Things are crazycrazycrazy and then all of a sudden, I'm in a little island of calm. Beautiful, unexpected and highly welcome.

It's not that I don't still have huge numbers of things to do, a sonnet to recite at a senior dance recital tomorrow, papers to grade (and projects, as they come), lines to work for a final directing scene. I also have a yard to whip into shape and various other projects to work on. BUT, I don't have any more outside-of-class-yet-still-required-for-class activities. Last night's viewing of The Wall was the last of those for the semester. So except for the grading frenzy of next week when I have to grade 30 portfolios in 24 hours and the two plays I must see (Urinetown this weekend and Doubt next weekend, I think, rather than trying to squash them all together), my evenings will be pretty much my own. Because I should be able to get all of the grading done within business hours. And I have only four more class periods for which I need to create lesson plans.

I honestly had begun to wonder if I would ever see this day. The one where the insane workload finally lifted. The fact that it's very close to the longed for day when at last the daffodils bloomed (in the same week, actually), tells you something about the gloomy grey cloud I've been steering under for most of the semester.

This afternoon, for the first time in ages, I sat down to read with lunch and picked, not papers or something I have to have ready for class, but a memoir that I chose from my bookshelf because I was interested in it. And I read the entire thing in one sitting. This afternoon. Without worrying about whether I had other things to do. Or how it was taking up time that really needed to be spent on more important activities. I read. I relaxed. I enjoyed it. I was afraid I'd forgotten how to do that.

Maybe sometime next week I'll feel free enough to pick up my journal again. There just hasn't been time for it lately, I've been too busy snatching sleep when I can get it or just practicing escapism after my insanely long days. And after I'm writing regularly in the journal, and the last few bits of grading are done, and the yard cleanup is well underway, maybe I'll be able to start doing art again.

Less than two weeks.

And counting.

Sigh.

Christopher Eccleston.

Siiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhh...

The day started with my usual fruit/protein/soymilk/coffee smoothie. I followed that up with an almond poppyseed muffin between classes (far more than I usually have for a mid-morning snack, but I was starving and a little shaky). Then at 1:30 I realized the headachy/nauseous feeling was hunger, not stress, so I had a pita with hummus, cheddar, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, olives and horseradish. I was hungry again at four so I had a no-whip, blended soy mocha. And now I'm eating corn fritters and a really yummy taco from our local Co-op, which not only has a sandwich bar and a sort-of deli counter, but different hot meals for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Vegetarian and meat-eater options for each.

I'm just not sure where all of this food is going, though "my hips and thighs" would be a good guess. I don't at all understand, however, why I am suddenly so hungry today. I mean, my exercise level has actually dropped because I've been too tired to walk to campus. I think I had a cold of some kind. Hmmmm... I wonder if that's what this is about. Replenishing my stores...

Couldn't we burn the fat away first? I mean, I'm more than happy to conserve resources while using my own blubber to fuel my activities for a while.

**UPDATE** 11:17pm. It's taking all my willpower to not get myself a slice of bread and cheese before bed. Surely, surely all the food I shoved in my face today (that listed above and three teeny little brownie cupcake bite thingys) should be enough to keep body and soul together until tomorrow.

The good news: I have now graded 12/29 projects that I need to give back on Thursday.

The bad news: I don't really have time to grade the other 17 tomorrow. Or to work on my lines. Or to do the rest of the very tall stack of remaining grading. And yet, I worked steadily today. Except for those moments when I was searching out edibles. How is it that I seem to have accomplished nothing but eating?