thoughts from a picnic table, part 2

23 hours later. Same table. Different noises. Feeling a bit stretched tonight - odd week catching up with me finally. Crashed hard after school today - Friday night hard - and woke with a start, disoriented. At first I thought the clock said 6:15, which would have meant I was screwed. But it said 5:15, so I snagged a quick shower, grabbed a couple of Wendy's spicy chicken wraps (no ranch), fought rush hour traffic and made it to the theater only five minutes late. I even managed to parallel park while talking on my cell phone, a minor miracle.

Hey, it's the little things.

Meant to print out the lectionary today at school so I could work on my talk tonight. Forgot. Will have to wait until tomorrow I suppose. While I'm glad to be doing Tartuffe, it has complicated my schedule a touch. No Wendell Berry Sunday (sad) and I'll probably have to miss The Seedy Seeds instore at Shake It tomorrow night, though I did score permission to not show up until 8 PM, so we'll see.

Sarah called on my way to the theater (hence the parallel parking miracle). We seem to talk at the oddest times. This weekend is Paul and Shannon's post-wedding Philadelphia extravaganza, so they all had been talking about me. Flattered. Somehow (I'll leave it to those wiser than me to figure out how) they were talking about my inability to flirt. Maybe inability is too strong. Reticence, perhaps? Definitely not a skill I practice often or excel at. Opportunity rarely presents itself anymore. I suppose I don't actually mind, though I do wonder occasionally if I developed it if I might not spend so many weekends alone. Though I feel maybe it's like getting your ear pierced - after a certain age, it's too late.

Expectations again - maybe I don't foresee a positive response to flirting, so why bother? Defeatist, definitely, but I can't say my experience has shown me any different. Honestly, not trying to fall in to my usual "woe-is-me." Only trying to make sense of why I act - or do not act - in certain situations. Pavlov wasn't far off - we repeat those actions for which we're rewarded.

I often think I should challenge myself, throw caution to the wind and get my flirt on. But where would I even go to do that? And who would take me seriously? Or even play along? The image from Lewis's The Great Divorce keeps appearing, of the skeletal woman smeared with make up, still attempting to be alluring. Like Cyrano, I fear the laughter behind a woman's eyes.

Hmmm. Didn't come here to talk about this. But it's where I've ended up.

Tomorrow my students turn in their persuasive letters to their parents. Taking a cue from last year, I'm going to have them self-evaluate (not to be confused with self-medicate), force them to look at their own writing and give reason why they give themselves the score they did. Need to set the tone early, help them take it seriously - at least as seriously as they can on a Friday after a crazy week. Not sure how focused I'll be myself tomorrow. Guess I'll find out.

Supposed to karaoke tonight and while I want to join, it seems unwise. We won't be out of here until 10:30-11:00, so by the time our names are called to sing, it will be well after the witching hour. Of course, with my nap this afternoon, I probably won't sleep anyway. We'll see how I feel in two hours.

Time to read some. If I keep writing, I'll never transfer all of it to my blog. Awww...Phil Collins is singing "Groovy Kind of Love" and the nostalgia comes roaring back. More on that later...Æ

thoughts from a picnic table, part 1

The Cure drifts through my headphones - yes, I'm still overdosing on nostalgia - as I sit on an old picnic table behind the Monmouth Theater. Our run through has begun and I'm out here whiling away the time until intermission, when I'll finally put on eye liner and get into costume. No need before then. Plus, I'll be in the way otherwise.

The worst of the power outage is over, though I still know people without. I'd like to think I could go days without power, but in truth I'd go stir crazy. I'm too dependent on my electronic luxuries now. Maybe if I weaned myself off them I could do it, but cold turkey would be too painful. OK, not painful. Uncomfortable. Inconvenient.

Look, I'm out here on a balmy September night, listening to "When Love Comes to Town" and waiting for my nightly cell phone alarm to remind me it's time to go to Compline. I can't even allow myself to sit and listen to the sounds of this almost autumn night. Of course, the smells wafting across are another matter entirely. They sure do smoke a lot of weed down here in Newport. Only way to survive such a hell-hole.

Sorry. Guess I'm still a bit bitter.

Cowboy Junkies are singing "I'm So Lonesome I Could Die." Fits the feeling of the evening better than the revving engines and slamming doors around me. Not because of the lyrics - can't say I'm feeling lonesome at this particular moment. But the soft melancholy feels like autumn. The morning air the past couple days caused a rush of memories, those inextricably tied to the season. Marching bands and harvest moons, fall plays and rustling leaves, love letters and inverted sunsets, whispered rendezvous and river trails. I love the change of the air - crisper, cooler, the last drops of humidity wrung out. The calendar won't know autumn for another five days, but for the atmosphere and my heart, it's already here.

Expectations. It's what I'm speaking on this Sunday. The brilliance of the lectionary shines this week - every passage tells the tale of thwarted expectations. Israelites wishing they'd stayed in Egypt, Jonah watching God forgive the Ninevites, the workers in the vineyard all getting paid the same. How dangerous our expectations can be, blinding us to the love and grace of God because it doesn't fit into our picture of what should be. What we want to be. What we wish. Hope. Expect. Æ

i've dropped trou and bent over. time to take advantage.

Turns out my "violation" on Friday was not for not having a city sticker but for a simple meter violation. Unlike 97% of the cities in America (I'm guessing here), the City of Newport forces you to feed their meters until midnight. Because obviously the increased prices at the stores around this hell-hole they call an entertainment district don't bring in enough revenue. The kind lady at the finance desk said this was a decision forced on the city by the local merchants who felt having the meters expire at say 6:00 PM like most places robbed them of the turnover needed to keep their businesses afloat. And obviously not enough people have been screwed and stopped going to make them change it.

I'd like to believe business and bureaucracies listen to their customers and do what is in the customer's best interest. But my experience has shown me the opposite - if they can line their pockets with money by screwing their customers, it saves them the hassle of being decent and forthright. Institutions, whether they be corporations or municipalities or governments or even churches, exist only to keep the institution alive, no matter the cost. And I have a hard time seeing any way to affect change. My not going to Newport isn't going to get them to change their meters. I doubt a letter to City Hall will be taken seriously either. So I'm left with the choice of going and putting up with their petty robbery or not going at all. But neither choice will change anything.

Feeling sore and violated...Æ

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Now playing: The New Pornographers - Adventures in Solitude
via FoxyTunes

unplugged

Ike sent some nasty wind our way today, wreaking havoc on weak trees and vulnerable power lines. I was down in Newport, helping with the load-in for Tartuffe, watching the winds throw shingles and branches down the street when Amy, the director, decided the chaos was too much to chance and canceled our run through. Strangely enough, the power was still on at the theater, an oasis of electricity surrounded by a desert of lifeless lights and useless electronics. I called the 'Wood and discovered we were sans power as well. I toyed briefly with staying at Monmouth if only for the A/C, but decided I should go home, make sure all was well.

A maelstrom of swirling branches and far too many fallen trees brought visions of my ancient oak lying prostrate over what remained of my house. I needn't have worried - she's a hearty old lady and has seen far worse in her century of life I imagine. I had to pop my garage door opener to get Lorelei out of danger, but other than my trash can and recycling bin trying to escape down my front yard, not much damage I could see. Definitely glad I didn't spend time yesterday doing yard work only to have it obliterated.

Shannon texted me and invited me over to her place for cards by candlelight. Probably should go - haven't spent time with them in far too long (I think I always say that) - plus her beau from Columbus is in town and I could finally meet him. My only options here are reading or writing some more and soon the light will fad too much to do either of those. Luckily, I'm not hungry because I have nothing to eat in my house and no way of getting anything. I'm not sure how the Amish survive. Less than four hours off the grid and I'm bored out of my skull. And I still have my iPod and phone to help keep me occupied. And a car to get around. I wonder if we reach a point of no return, when our lives can no longer be as simple as they once were. Perhaps we're too dependent on our gadgets to live without them for more than hours at a time. We'd lose our minds in such simplicity.

One of the vocab words this past week was nostalgia (which my students continually pronounced noh-stahl-ah-gee-a). Been indulging in a little nostalgia overload lately - listening to my 80s playlist, catching up with old friends. I've even toyed with venturing into the basement to pull out my box of old letters, specifically some special ones from 20 years ago. Yes, I'm one of those who keep everything. Why? Nostalgia, sure. But I also hold these delusions of people sorting through them after I'm dead and piecing together the patterns of my life.

That's probably enough to find myself institutionalized sooner than later.

All that to say, autumn is nearly upon us (even if the weather refuses to agree) and my nostalgia binging will most likely slip into overdrive. And honestly, I'm looking forward to a little backward glancing, as long as I don't get lost down memory lane. We'll see.

Temperature's arising. time to blow this popsicle stand. Here's hoping the power stays out in Mason long enough to cancel school...Æ

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Now playing: The Magnetic Fields - California Girls
via FoxyTunes