writewrite

As many of you know, I have a sabbatical coming up. I’ll teach online this summer, and direct an independent study, and probably do some committee work here and there (sigh), but I won’t be stepping into a classroom to teach until January of 2011. Despite what all our teaching gurus tell us about the fantastic whatever of online teaching, for me *actual* face to face teaching takes the most energy. I find it exhilarating, yet exhausting.

And, when I teach, in the classroom, I don’t write as much as I would like.

Or ride.

And those are the two things I plan to do during my sabbatical: Write and Ride.

Or, to be more precise: Write the book, Horses and Divorces, and ride the horse, Oliver. Everything else comes in second. And many things will be simply dropped.

Like this blog. I’ve written things on this blog for a couple of years now. It’s been fun, and interesting, and sometimes I think I say things that are perhaps useful. But on balance, it’s a distraction. Writing here takes away writing that should go elsewhere. In the notebook, or in the book.

So this is it. The last blog post from writewrite. No more skewering the mangled writing of the local lousy newspaper. (Yes, dear editor, you can rest easy now.) No more cranky posts about local happy-face head-in-the-sand politics. (Yes, dear PR people where I work, you can heave a small sigh of relief that you don’t have to read-what-Jean-wrote and prepare to cringe.) No more completely gratuitous posts about my beloved Owen. Or about shoes. Or about random oddities in the place where I live. Or teaching. Or, well, anything.

I’m off to write. And to ride. See you in the real world!

PS and if I deleted your comments on this last post, it was completely by accident!

The sky in Indiana in November.

Today, seven things that undo a funk:

1. My brother is out of the hospital, and (I hope) is finding ways to de-stress his life and be healthy.
2. Baxter is not going to a new home after all, and I am very relieved the little goofball will be staying here.
3. Owen is trying to teach Baxter how to chase squirrels. Baxter thinks Owen is a little nutty. But they are getting along, and the cats are resigned to life with dogs.
4. It’s not as humid. My basement is drying out. The sun is shining.
5. I am still behind in the work that needs to be done for the Fall semester, but incrementally making headway.
6. The ten pounds (no longer 12!) that I’ve been trying to lose is sort of, kind of, starting to budge.
7. and: Kurt, Oliver, Friday.

Which makes nine things, total. So there you are.

dogicon:

]:-P…..

(ears, tongue hanging out, slobber drips)

caticon

(>=<)_____!

(fat cat pretending to sleep while tail wiggles to attract prey)

underfooticon

===000000

(squished bug with antennae)

horsicon

<:o:~~

(as seen if you were standing underneath)

writericon

~~~~~xx_____________” ”

(writer with long hair, napping. notice similarity to horsicon)

Words are so cool. The difference between ‘flotsam’ and ‘jetsam’? Both are debris in the ocean; one is the stuff left floating after a wreck (flotsam); the other the stuff that is jettisoned from a ship in distress (jetsam).

In ordinary, not merely marine, usage, the phrase “flotsam and jetsam” means odds and ends, rubbish, junk.

The past couple of weeks, in an extraordinary effort to avoid writing, I have come across a great deal of flotsam and jetsam in my own home. Some is still floating around the house: a pair of wooden Canada geese I apparently thought it was important to own; lots of rocks and shells collected in various states and countries over the years; way too many shoes, including: a pair of green vinyl flats, blue leopard print stilletos, and a gorgeous pair of Frye boots that weigh about ten pounds; a basket of tennis balls hidden from Owen; a huge stuffed dog I found in the basement. I own this? Apparently I do.

And, some jetsam, much of it from another life, now jettisoned to Goodwill, the trash, new homes. To name what’s lost is to keep it around, in some sense. The jetsam shall go unnamed. It’s simply, and finally, gone.

I unabashedly love this ad, simply and only because I love the way the little girl says “She thinks you’re super delicious.”

I know. Such a deep life I lead.

As my students say? Yeah…whatever.

Tomorrow night, Thursday April 9, at 7 p.m., Indiana University East will be showing the documentary film 1:47 in Vivian Auditorium. If you are a reader of this blog, you are invited to come out and see the film. And bring your friends too. I’ll be there, and say a few things before and after the film.

I am at a conference with three students, all about half my age, or, well, thirty years younger than I am. Even as I write that, I think: Could this be possible? I’m old enough to be their mother? In some circles, their grandmother? Oh my. I don’t think of myself as middle-aged. I don’t walk around thinking: yep, I’m fifty, how about that, halfway to dead already. I do walk around thinking, I feel pretty good. I feel energetic — mostly — smart (sort of) — and if I do the Tyra Banks walk? Well, yes indeed I can still turn heads. Never mind that the heads belong to other 50 somethings. Just never mind that.

But this week? I feel old. My students have a lot more energy than I do. Granted, their energy peaks about 9 pm when mine is going into jammy mode. And in the morning, they are sleepyheads while I’m ready to run around and do things. But they seem to have an ability to get by on less sleep, intermittent food (and lots of it), combined with constant motion and activity and conversation.

About now, I’m ready for a day of nothing but a couple of books, silence, some good coffee, and sheer quiet. And, I must admit, a diet. When you’re fifty, don’t try to eat like twenty-somethings. You’ll wear the meals for a long time.

Today, my dad turns 85. He’s celebrating his birthday far from where I am at the moment, and I imagine he is having a wonderful time. My brother posted a poem for Dad’s birthday; Dan’s post is an interesting read.

For my Dad’s birthday, I found myself humming a Muppets song, the one Robin the frog sings in celebration of being 5. (It starts at 3:48 on the video.)

If you just substitute 85 for 5, it kind of works. So, today, I am going to sing this song in celebration of my dad being 85. He’s a great 85, and I can only hope I am just as great when I’m 85 myself.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

In the current issue of the New Yorker, there is an interesting article about Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Apparently, when approached by Obama for the position, Emanuel was — at least at first — not interested. He had other aspirations.

Emanuel did not want the job. A few months before Election Day, Obama sent him an e-mail, with a warning: “Heads up, I’m coming for you.” Emanuel was a key negotiator in moving the TARP legislation through Congress, in October. After the bill cleared Congress, Obama, who supported it, sent Emanuel another e-mail. “I told you we made a great team,” he said. Emanuel wrote back, “I look forward to being your floor leader in the House.”

That may have been the end of the story. However, a brother comes into play…read on:

While Obama was wooing Rahm, Rahm’s older brother, Ezekiel, an oncologist and a bioethicist, served as a sounding board. “I probably spent half an hour every day being screamed at on the telephone by him,” he said. “ ‘I don’t want to do this. Why do I have to do this? Tell me I don’t have to do this.’ All of which said to me he knew he had to do it.”

Interesting…