21 November 2008

Burn After Reading

Quick post to tell everyone to see this movie at some point. Careful! Not for children...


i went with a friend to our local dollar movie theater (really $2.50 movie theater) last night to see this movie, which was probably out long ago and will soon be rentable. Ben suggested it to me and i was uncertain until he said it was the Coen Brothers. It was absolutely hysterical. Brad Pitt is undeniably the best part of the film, but Clooney's role is fantastic as well as Frances McDormand. It really rivals Fargo in terms of successful dark comedy and if you liked that one, you'll like this one too.

Probably my last entry before i leave for Thanksgiving, so i hope everyone has a lovely one. i will be getting to see my brother and parents, Emily and her family, and Beth. It's too bad its such a short break, but it'll still be good to see them, especially now. i can't wait to sit down at Beth's kitchen table with coffee and just cut up for a few hours.

At any rate, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone... i want to see pictures of kids with Christmas trees soon!!

16 November 2008

How Much Easier Would My Life Have Been...




This weekend has been pretty slow. i was sick with something most of last week and even took Friday off school. i'll never know what it was, since my doctor wouldn't see me. But actually, that's exactly the kind of doc that i want. i'm not big on taking antibiotics for any drip and fever that comes down the chute. That's how we ended up with super-bacteria, thank you very much. But i was compelled to call her after two nights of being unable to sleep from a cough that wouldn't respond to syrups. The nurse asked me what was wrong with me, and so of course i said, 'oh, there's so many ways to answer that question.' After waiting fruitlessly for a laugh, i went on and told her i had a cough. She was unimpressed and wouldn't give me an appointment. Bravo.

Anyway, i was feeling better on Saturday when i got a call from Emily. Get this, guys... she's a Girl Scout! Yep, my baby girl, who for me will ever in part be the sleeping angel of an infant i placed in her mother's arms, is now a shameless cookie pusher.

i've always told my students that the first girl to bring me a cookie form will totally clean up, but i guess i can stop saying that now. i've found myself a new dealer.

Later i went to a pizza party for one of my friends' final adoption hearing. Yes, their two lovely children, a 4 year old boy and a 6 year old girl, are now legally theirs. i couldn't help but remember Emily's own final hearing. Of course she was just 6 months old on that day. But that was the first time i had seen her since the hospital. And that was the first day that Chris and Shelly let us into their lives and the first day after she was born that i didn't wake up worrying about her. And, really, the last.

Today we went to see the Upper School play, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. i had no idea how racy it was!! Much less so than the Mesozoic Era, in my opinion, though i'll hear much more about the inappropriateness of the latter.

10 November 2008

Remembering Andrea's Old Friend

This weekend was our first chess tournament of the season, so i did that all day Saturday. Had no plans to do anything else but grade lab reports when... i got a call from my new friends. They said they were hitting Old Town (a groovy little area of Wichita where all the youngin's hang out on weekends to drink themselves silly).

We ate first at a Mexican restaurant called Playa Azul (translation: Blue Beach... who knows why?) and then went to Mort's bar across the street. After sitting around there for a few hours we decided to hit another place, presumably an Irish bar called Finns. It is difficult to describe how out of place a bunch of teachers, even in our twenties, were at this place. It was not so much Irish as Wichita, Kansas's attempt at an inner city dive. So i decide my last drink of the night needs to be an Alabama Slammer. Andrea put this idea back into my head last month and i thought, hey, what the heck...

So i'm sitting there with five other nerds, sippin' on my old friend and watching all the urban youths grind on each other on the dance floor while we sit around and talk politics and philosophy at a volume that will make all of us hoarse the next day. What comes on the speakers next, but Sir Mixalot. So we all get up and dance... drinks in hand, and i'm having myself a total 90s revival in my own mind.

i also took the oppertunity this week, since my mom was feeling bad for me about some unpleasantness in the romance department, to break the news about my latest tattoo. So since my mom knows now, i guess i can show y'all too.

i did this last month... or even back in September. i love it to death. The tattoo artist (and most everyone who has seen it) says, "hey, cool, a satellite dish..." And i have to say... "um, no, helLO, its a radio telescope....??"

It was based on this photograph from my trip to the VLA during my Southwest Safari:




And here's how the tat turned out...



It's on my left thigh, a little lower than i think maybe it should be, but high enough to be covered for school and low enough to be seen in shorts without having to flash leg! No, it's not the whole periodic table nor the neodymium square i was pondering early this year. BUT when i thought of it i knew immediately i wanted it. Good sign. It both expresses my inner (maybe not so inner?) nerd and commemorates my trip through the desert. So i'm pleased.

my mother of course says... "do you know how bad that's going to look when you're 80?!" And my response, as ever, is... "do you really think when i'm 80 my tattoo will be the worst-looking part of my body??"

05 November 2008

Just One Vote Each

i had a small group over last night and a constant stream of text messages with my brother and mother. i watched from the first closings in Indiana and Kentucky until the victory speech and the official call on Florida.

When ABC called Ohio, we all knew. my phone lit up with a one-word text message: BOOM. my friends and i looked around at each other with wide eyes, then jumped up and cheered.

This morning, tired and feeling like i am still dreaming, i find myself in tears. my brother has been touched by this for weeks, somehow better grasping the enormity of this moment. But for me it took waking up this morning and finding that nothing changed overnight, watching the images from last night on the morning news, and listening to the chatter of of my "intellectual elitist" colleagues.

This morning i feel so proud of my country. Over the last eight years i had begun to wonder who we were, and what we believe in. Preemptive war, disdain of the educated and education, and the lack of compassion in our government.

i like Barack Obama and i think he will make a fine president. But i am most proud today of Americans, and their willingness to reach forward into a new generation and to embrace a new (dare i use the word) hope. As i told my students yesterday, both candidates are exceptional men. Both were worthy of respect and honor. Both have accomplished feats of which i am simply not capable. And perhaps i would have felt this way no matter what today. But as i said in the primaries when trying to explain why i would not vote for Hillary Clinton... there's just something about this man. He is an inspiring orator, to be sure. He is an historic figure as the first black president but he also comes from white [Kansas!] roots as well and may be one of the few people who can bridge the gap between races and unite us all. But none of those things are what reached me and my vote. It is his wisdom. Barack Obama is a scholar, a listener, and a deliberate thinker. A wise man... a wise person.

And i can't help but think about what this means to civil rights in America. Just fifty years ago, in parts of this country, this man would not have been able to drink from the same fountain as me. i think of all the older black people in America who remember being afraid to drive across the state of Indiana, and today Indiana casts its electoral college votes for a black man. i find myself hoping that there is an afterlife, so that all those men who were beaten to death, lynched, or executed by a racist state can see how far we have come. Have we overcome? No, there's still so much to solve, and so much to heal, and so many walls still to break down. But America stood up last night and took a stride.

John McCain gave a very classy, very gracious acceptance speech, and i wish we could go back to those days when the runner-up became VP. i was not as impressed with the crowd, but... hey, if there was no dissent, it just wouldn't be America.

Go USA.

04 November 2008

Murphy's Law

It does not vary: whenever i have somewhere to be (like people coming over for an election night watch party), one student will be late being picked up from after school....

gRrrrr......

03 November 2008

Centering

It's a day and a half until polls close. my brother and i have been talking back and forth and analyzing everything to death. i am absolutely useless as a teacher today. Tomorrow will be worse. If we are up late on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning waiting for a call on who our next president is, i will be pretty useless Wednesday too. i am not going to bed until i know who will be inaugurated in January.

i have been feeling this way for days, essentially counting days and hours until tomorrow. i even numbered the days on my wall calender from about a month ago. So this weekend i decided i needed a little bit of centering. i have not had the luxury for a few months now, not since my Southwest trip, to think. Just think. And feel. And wonder. So, to center myself for this election, i headed to Lebanon, Kansas.

Lebanon is a little over 200 miles from Wichita, due north and then a little west. With gas prices around here back under $2, and a fresh paycheck in the bank, i decided to make the trip. Lebanon is the perfect place to center yourself for an election because it is literally the center of the continental US.

i woke up around 8 and had a few errands to take care of, like paying rent and finishing the mix tape i made for the road (yes, my truck still has a tape deck). These things started slowing me down and i didn't get out the door until around 10. But once on the road i was quickly at home. It was a gorgeous weekend. Highs in the low 70s and whispy cloudy skies. On my way out of the city i listened to all my backlogged Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me... episodes, but once i cleared Salina and left the highway, i switched to the tunes. my first stop was the little known Rock City outside of Minneapolis, KS.




Kansas used to be the bottom of a large inland sea. In fact there are many places in Kansas where you can go to find marine fossils. This strikes people as odd sometimes, but it is quite demonstrable. These sandstone concretions are left over from that time period. They are tremendous formations!! It's difficult to illustrate this without anyone to pose in front to the rocks. (i should go ahead and say now that i was the only one at three of my five destinations on Saturday.) To correct for this, i took a photograph with my truck in the background:




Rock city is a lot smaller than i thought it would be, but is rather impressive, though perhaps only to us science types. Here's another one i thought was cool due to its near spherical shape:



Next i was off to the Center. i went through the charming little towns of Concordia and Belleville, then turned west on US 36 and some very lonely country with more cattle than people. Half an hour brought me to KS 181 where i turned north and found the town of Lebanon.



It seems that Kansas towns, like pets, come to resemble the places after which they are named. Where Minneapolis, KS, seemed to take on the manicured prosperity of Minnesota, Lebanon looked like a war-torn town falling on even harder times. Most of the homes were pretty shoddy, but there were an awful lot of trucks and what seemed like a decent city center. To be fair, i never did follow the sign pointing out Lebanon's "business district."

A little north of the town is KS 191, a road built with only the purpose of carrying people to the geographic center. i was the only one here too. Unimaginable.

Right at the spot is a stone monument. i was there. At the center of continental America. Three days before the most historic election of my lifetime. i sat and i tried to feel the extent of our country on all sides of me. i thought of all the diversity of people going about their lives, working, playing with their children, having sex, reading on their porches, facing death, being born... i thought about all the people i know all over this country, from California to Oklahoma to South Carolina to Pennsylvania. i thought about how many of our lives have interwined, abided, slipped away, or just missed. It was quiet, with a gentle breeze and nothing moving but the cattle on a far hillside. i did not see another human being.


A little ways from the monument is a small chapel that holds about six people or so. It's called the Center Chapel. And behind that is an old motel. i guess people used to come and stay here. It looks like it's been closed since the early 80s or so, though. Perhaps due to the movement of the actual center of the US to Belle Foursche, SD when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in '59.

Here is what you see looking back along KS 191 (which, for some reason, Google Maps calls US 191) toward the town of Lebanon.



And that's Kansas for you. The center of it all and yet absolutely nothing at all. Or at least, nothing if you want something. If nothing is what you're looking for, Kansas has it all. This kind of openness is what i will miss about Kansas when i leave it in a couple of years.

The other thing i will miss is stumbling upon oddities. i left Lebanon and headed south on KS 181, then took US 24 back east. i planned to cross my northbound path and go on to Manhattan, KS to shop at a particular book store that i love. But on US 24 i found myself driving through downtown Cawker City.



i went all the way through the town but something was nagging at me. i knew i had heard of Cawker City. i had read about it somewhere and there was something i was missing. So i turned around and picked my way back through the town, looking for something that i somehow knew i didn't want to miss. And sure enough, i had read about Cawker city in a book on Kansas Superlatives. It is home to the world's larges ball of sisal twine. How glad i am that i did not miss this!!



And man, i really wanted to stay here at the Ball of Twine Inn, but alas, there was no vacancy, so i pressed on.



i did make it to Manhattan, which is just a beautiful area of Kansas, and bought the new Family Guy and the first season of Big Bang. The drive home was fantastic. Sunset on the red flint hills is just gorgeous. And i didn't think i was going to, but 11 hours after setting out, i managed to make it back to Wichita in time to meet some friends for a haunted house. After that? The Blair Witch Project at one of their homes. Finally, i have found not just another human being who likes that movie but 5!!

i think i found my center. Again.