enough

Dear students,

News flash: I don't care why you didn't come to class yesterday, or the day before, or the day before, unless you have a doctor's note you'd like me to use to excuse your absences. I don't care about whatever technological melt-down prevented you from turning in your homework. I don't care how sick your roommate's cousin's cat is. All I care about is that you a.) show up, b.) do the work, and c.) don't waste my time on some elaborate excuse as to why you failed to do a.) or b.). It's embarrassing for both of us.

Even saying that I care about a.), b.) and c.) would be overstating things. Really, all I care about is c.). It really doesn't affect me one way or the other if you fail my class, unless it's due to me not holding up my end of the educational bargain. Since I know that this is not the case, I'm just not losing sleep over it. My job is to provide you with resources and opportunities that will facilitate your learning. Your job is to avail yourself of those resources and opportunities. At most, your failure to do your job inconveniences me in the extent to which it infringes upon the time and energy I should be devoting to doing my job (hint: the less infringement here, the better).

It may come as a surprise to you that my personal opinion of you has nothing to do with the grade you will receive, and as a consequence your reason for dropping the ball will have little bearing on the outcome. Unless you can prove to me that the fates have aligned against you - which happens to us all at times - your reasons for dropping the ball or how nice a person you are will, in fact, have no bearing whatsoever on the grade I give you. If you choose to try to prove to me that the fates have aligned against you, you better be ready to bring it.

Student A: I'm sorry your boyfriend is in the hospital. But Jason so-and-so could be your eighth cousin twice removed as far as I know, and even if I accept that he is, in fact, your boyfriend, I fail to see how his emergency room visit last week should excuse your absences for roughly half the semester.

Student B: I can't figure out how the university's network could so maliciously hide the two web-based assignments you swear you did (out of the four I assigned), considering that I can see all the work that everyone else did without a single problem. Don't think that the growing complexity of your excuse (you can see it when you log in, etc.) will prevent me from frog-marching you down to the computer lab to show me what the network evidently can't. Tell me, exactly how far would you like to take this?

Student C: You were notified of today's assignment two weeks ago, during two consecutive class periods of which you attended neither. When you attempted to find an online copy so that you could start the work this afternoon before class, you learned there wasn't any. Moreover, I failed to bring hard copies of the assignment I administered fully two weeks ago and, since I had heard nothing to the contrary until today, THE DUE DATE, assumed you knew about. You have five classes. I have nearly a hundred students. At any given moment, a dozen or so of these students have some contingency going on (some legitimate, others not at all) that desperately needs my special consideration. Tell me, whose job do you think it is to make sure you know what's going on?

I will not claim to be the world's most organized and responsible person. Far from it. Nonetheless, it is now my job to instill in you all a spirit of accountability for your own actions, and this is one responsibility I take very seriously.

Whatever you think, it's not me you're mad at right now.

have you seen me?

Lost: mojo.

Missing since: Beginning of second semester as a college professor.

Description: shimmering, mercurial, brilliant blue, shape-shifting veil of creativity and energy.

Last seen with: Girlish Laughter, Sense of Purpose, Childlike Wonder.

Also answers to: juju, pilas, chutzpah, moxie.

Reward: back handspring, Great American Novel.

If found, please: just send smoke signals or leave it in a basket on the front stoop, or else slip it quietly back into its place and I'll never know you're the one who took it.

projects, fall 2008

Here are some projects that I've been meaning to post about for a while now. Namely, since the fall. I won't even start on the winter ones in this round. Suffice it to say, I've been busy.

These were felted wool and corduroy masks for a Halloween masquerade street fair in our neighborhood. Too bad everybody was passed out by the time we hit the streets.

Everybody told me I should just give up on this metal cabinet. I admit, it was more shabby than chic, and it got old having to vacuum up the paint chips once a week. Instead, I took some steel wool and WD-40 to it and stripped it down to this:
Next, I spray-painted it with Rustoleum to try to contain the creeping rust, then applied dark brown paint, then a crackle glaze, and finally an apple green paint. Maybe my friends were right and I should have left well enough alone, but I'm happy with the results:

I found this telescoping table at a garage sale. It looks like an innocent buffet here, but it seats fifteen people when you put the leaves in. Perfect when you have no idea whether your next place is going to have a dining room, but definitely needed some touching up.

This is after stripping it and refinishing with a cherry gel stain (additional cherry artwork courtesy of Nohemí Lugo, table runner by yours truly):Andy had this dresser with the paper-thin oak veneer finish and colonial-ish hardware:
and he kindly let me paint it and replace the hardware. The table runner, I made a couple years back:

This was the bike I got when I was twelve. Back when a rainbow pastel bike was a hot item. The best bike I've ever had, but definitely needed some updates.

Again, WD-40 and a green kitchen scrubbie took the rust out of the chrome.Emory bikes were handmade in Jacksonville, Florida. Some time soon I'll go back and spraypaint a bit more carefully around the emblem.

The handlebars were covered in this crappy black foam, which we peeled off to reveal pristine chrome. Since this photo, it's had new whitewalls, a new chain, and new grips (not pink). Phase three starts in the spring: fenders, a basket, and a new seat, and it'll be a bona fide cruiser.So there you go. Stay tuned for winter's projects.

This one's for Sarah Vowell.

What do the commander of the Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee, intrepid Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and the father of the Civil Rights movement the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. all have in common?

Up until recently, all three were commemorated in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the same Friday each January, a holiday called Lee-Jackson-King Day.  

This is actually somewhat more innocuous than it sounds.  Virginia had already been celebrating King's birthday since 1978 (although it's worth mentioning that he had to share the marquee with New Year's Day...ringing in the new year being a pretty tough act to follow, of course).  Then, Ronald Reagan declared Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national celebration in 1983.  Unfortunately, this coincided with a day that Virginia had already set aside to celebrate its local heroes, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  

Aw, what the hell, decided Virginia.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I reckon.  Somehow, celebrating the dogged defenders of one human being's right to possess another human  being while simultaneously celebrating the man who had a dream that one day this nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed seemed tenable here in the state that boasts the former capitol of the Confederacy.  What's most amazing to me as a damn Yankee is that this seemed okay all the way from 1983 up until 2000, when the governor of the Commonwealth, Jim Gilmore, suggested that Virginia go ahead and observe the same Federal holiday as everybody else, and celebrate their Confederate darlings on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day instead.  

Everybody wins!

And for dessert, I offer you this one: a week ago today, the public schools in the Hampton Roads area all closed, along with most of the universities (except, as luck would have it, mine) due to a winter weather advisory predicting - are you ready for this? - one to five inches of snow.  The punchline for this Michigander is that this had all been accomplished before a single snowflake had been spotted on or anywhere approaching the ground in all of Hampton Roads.  So, as the ticker across the bottom of the screen was scrolling through every school district for miles around, the meteorologist was saying "well, we haven't seen any snow yet, of course, bu-ut..." In fact, all of the ominous predictions would amount to no snowfall whatsoever, just a snow day.   

Yep, Toto.  Definitely not Kansas.

The Velveteen Hedgehog

Over Christmas, I visited some friends whose chaotic household includes three pets: a cat, a shepherd mix, and a Great Dane-black lab mix (who distinguished herself this holiday season by graphically failing to digest six dozens' worth of cookie dough all over the kitchen floor in the midst of the annual nog-oriented festivities - but that's another story). During the several days I was there, the pets seemed hell-bent on destroying their Christmas toy. They were already in the final phases of their efforts: all I could make out of the toy in question was an indiscriminate, slobbery lump of red and green plush loosely swathing an electronic device that still feebly played "We wish you a Merry Christmas" upon each toothy impact. It was funny and incongruous to see the beloved furry pets turn into fierce beasts determined to rip those cheery little pre-recorded carolers to shreds.

Several days later the neighbs's mother, in keeping with tradition, received - with the usual disappointment - the silliest present in the family gift exchange (the kind where you draw numbers, open one present, swap, steal, et cetera). It was a tiny plush chimpanzee wearing a cape and a Zorro mask. When you pulled back his elastic arms you could fling him, slingshot style, a fair distance, and once in the air he emitted a wild monkey screech. Hilarity ensued.

The neighb's mom hoped she could interest her cat in Christmas Chimp, but Gus scampered off during the initial at-home trial launch. Grendl, on the other hand, perked up his ears and bounded to where Christmas Chimp had landed, picked him up, pranced over to me and laid Christmas Chimp on my feet with an expectant smile. Naturally, Christmas Chimp now resides in our pantry, where he is kept safe from evisceration between nightly play sessions.

As funny as he is, and as much delight as Grendl takes from him, Christmas Chimp makes me sad. Intended for human enjoyment, he has instead gone straight to the dogs. Undoubtedly he was made in faraway lands by tiny, tiny hands who probably coveted a Christmas Chimp of their own to slingshot. He was conceived to stuff the stocking of some affluent tot, or at least to evoke occasional merriment from atop someone's computer monitor. Instead, he bypassed such dubious purposes altogether, destined to be drooled upon by a fanged creature incapable of appreciating his adorable little chimp face and the rakishness of his cape and mask.

I, of course, do appreciate these things; but then again, I'm the one who threw him to the wolves in the first place, so to speak. The anthropomorphic side of me cringes every time I throw the poor little guy. His recorded monkey screech sounds less playful and more plaintive with each passing day. I dread the moment that the screeching stops altogether, and the floppy, saliva-drenched, silent form gets deposited in my lap as Grendl once again says, make it go, Mama!

Also, I can't help but feel sorry for Hedgehog, who once enjoyed pride of place in the pantry amid the abandoned frisbees, tug toys and woolly footballs. Her earthy grunt no longer sounds in our hallway, having dulled in comparison to Christmas Chimp's electronic charms. She languishes in crusty solitude, waiting for that cursed battery to expire.

And that, friends, is why I am not allowed so much around the inanimate objects.

happy happy

I just came back from the movie theater in our neighborhood, just a couple of blocks away. I’d never gone to the movies by myself but I’m glad I did, and I’m especially glad I did so for the movie “Happy-Go-Lucky”. There are a couple of reasons, really. First, it was really nice, after spending several days with my family, to do something entirely for and by myself – especially since it consisted in seeing a film about making one’s own fun and happiness in this life. Second, the main character in this film, Poppy Cross, would have annoyed the crap out of anyone whom I could have dragged along.

Poppy even annoyed me at first -- which is saying something, considering how much I liked her from the movie’s trailer. Played by Sally Hawkins, she’s an unlikely heroine for a film: she’s all nervous laughter, zero attention span, kitschy wardrobe and constant wisecracks. You begin to appreciate her wiry, unconventional beauty only when she occasionally holds still. Poppy can find a silver lining where other people would never think to look for one, and her capacity for empathy puts others to shame. She’s no insipid Pollyanna, though: she gets drunk, makes fun of people who have it coming, and sometimes underestimates the extent to which her actions affect others.

Irritating qualities aside, she’s kind of my hero. Her undaunted good humor, her unflagging interest in others and her unwavering determination to seek out the best in people often make her the brunt of awkward encounters. But thanks to her general desire to engage with the world surrounding her, she doggedly challenges the negativity and torpor that surround her on all sides – all the while flatly refusing to take herself, or anyone, too seriously.

Everywhere, Poppy watches violence, anger, resentment, fear and disappointment become the filters through which others interact with the world and with one another. Meanwhile, people keep suggesting that she become an adult by “taking responsibility”. This movie reassured me that someone other than me is out there asking an important question: have we really reached a point at which the conscious cultivation of happiness is regarded as a less wise and serious approach to life than the suppression of one’s innate anger and cynicism? I think what I liked so much about this film, more than Poppy herself, is its suggestion that happiness is a responsibility, too.

Why I hate Rachael Ray

At least I suspect it was Rachael Ray.

Of all the items for the grocery store to run out of on the day before Thanksgiving, pancetta was the last thing I was worried about. Oh, I had these big aspirations about making my stuffing with figs and pancetta along with all the staple Thanksgiving foods, but the grocery store ran out of pancetta on Wednesday morning. Plenty of turkey and canned pumpkin and whatnot, but pancetta? Forget it.

"Ay-yup," said the guy at the deli counter. "I reckon there was some recipe on the Food Network that everybody was all excited to try". His guess was Paula Dean, though personally I think she would have dismissed pancetta in favor of straight up bacon. Stuffed with lard. With a side of butter. No, I think it was probably Rachael Ray.

Mostly because I love to hate her. I mean, who spells "Rachel" like "Michael"? So should I pronounce it "Raykle"? Gimme a break. Also. Men are fascinated by her, and for the simplest of all reasons: she has lots of cleavage and wants to cook them burgers. She's exactly halfway between sexy hot party girl and maternal nurturer who will take care of you for the rest of your life. She sets unreasonable and terrifying standards for the rest of us girls who can think of a better way to spend the day than winning a wet T-shirt contest and then baking you cookies (note - the foregoing sentence was much more lyrically effective and also much more crude in its first incarnation. Inquire for details).

So what do we do? We march straight down to the grocery store and we buy up all the pancetta, yes, because sexiness is not enough anymore, we must be sexy and cook bacon, and not just any bacon, no, but sexy Italian bacon, because this icon of womanhood has ordained that thou shalt cook pancetta and give lap-dances this Thanksgiving, and as a consequence my un-Rachael-related made-up recipe (which I suppose I may have unconsciously leaked to her busty minions when I came up with it all by myself months ago) had to be prepared with the homelier, Paula Dean-endorsed inclusion of humble hickory-smoked bacon.

Epilogue: it was delicious. But I have not forgiven Raykle, nor do I intend to.