Why I Rent

I noticed a minor problem with my drainage pipes last week while I was shoveling the driveway.

The pipe was split, and the whole thing was coated with a thick layer of ice. I immediately took this picture and sent it to my landlord. When I came home from my grandma's this evening, the pipe was fixed.

Friday, my trunk wouldn't open. I turned the key, pulled up, but it wouldn't budge. The trunk release did nothing either. My first thought was, "Well this sucks - no more trunk!" Instead of thinking about where I should go to get it checked out, I was imagining my life without a working trunk. The next day my friend said she noticed my trunk was open and shut it for me. She was puzzled by my excitement.

Anyway, I really believe that if I owned my house and noticed my drainage pipe split and frozen over, I'd think to myself, "Well it was nice having a drainage pipe.

Snow Day

My new smart phone does many things, from email and twitter to Facebook and web browsing. But I can't write and submit a new blog post from it, at least not the traditional way.

Anyway, as my title suggests, I had a snow day today. One of the benefits of living in the Midwest is that we don't get heavy snowfall that often, but when we do, we go crazy. Most schools and some businesses are closed, cars are wrecked, and grocery stores have a run on bread and milk. Me, I can walk to my favorite chili place, my favorite pizza place, and my favorite convenience store; in other words, I don't stock up on supplies. And if I get desperate, I can even walk another quarter mile to Starbucks.

We've had some snowfall the past few days, though most of it fell today. My downstairs neighbor and I have been playing chicken to see who would finally shovel the driveway. Since I was off, and he clearly wasn't, I went ahead and shoveled when it appeared my fall-back plan, the solar method (i.e. wait 'til it melts), wouldn't happen for some time.

I just heard his car (a little Honda) struggle to make it up the first part of the driveway - I shoveled that part last, and by then I think the temperature had crept above freezing, making the snow heavy. An icy inch is better than a snowy 8 inches, right?

Friday's Five After Five

Another Friday, another evening spent with friends in a grocery store. About once a month, instead of wine, Whole Foods has a beer tasting. Whether the weather (ha) or an aversion to beer by the sort of folks who would go to tastings, these nights have been decidedly less crowded. And until yesterday, the food has been less-than appetizing.

Station one began with an organic Acai Berry Wheat and a queso dip. The beer was light, reminding me of Blue Moon. The queso, served with a couple tortilla chips, was delicious.

Station two had an organic India pale ale. This was darker, richer, and hoppier. I normally like strong beers, but I'd skipped the food at this station--potato salad--and the bitter beer was a little too much. (I still drank it all, of course.)

Station three had an "Old Ale," Triple Exultation Ale. It was dark, rich, and sweet, and went very well with the delicious hot wings that were served at that station. Though they were "hot" in name only, the wings were wonderful: crispy, meaty, and flavorful.

Station four, we drank an organic porter. It was another dark beer, but it was very smooth. The food, called "Hankie Pankies," looked so good that I ate it without reading the ingredients: ground beef, sausage, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, oregano, and party rye bread. I could have eaten two or three of these.

Finally, at the last station, was a goat roll. Goat cheese, herbs and spices were served on a cracker. We drank Raven's Eye Imperial Stout - a beer new to Cincinnati with a 10% alcohol content. Dark with a hint of espresso, I think it's most similar to Guinness.

Two or three inches of snow fell in Cincinnati, so panic ensued, and the roads were practically empty. I wonder how crowded (or not crowded) the library will be; I feel like picking out a great movie to watch tonight.

Lies My Mother Told Me

When I was a child, during the summer I frequently heard that unmistakable music of the ice cream truck. But I wasn't allowed to just grab change I'd saved up and run outside to buy a 60 cent Popsicle. I needed permission. My mom, though, wasn't a fan of saying "no." Instead, she'd say, "Oh that's not the ice cream truck. That's just the music truck."

"The music truck?"

She explained that there were, indeed, two trucks: the ice cream truck that slowly drove around the neighborhood, selling Popsicles, ice cream bars, and orange creamsicles; and the less-familiar music truck. Its job was to fill the air with the innocuous melody of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"

Ten or so years later I said to her, "I haven't seen any music trucks in a while. Do they still have them?" Of course, the truth came out. To this day, though, whenever I hear "Do Your Ears Hang Low," I think of that phantom music truck.

I was smart but gullible, a description that probably still holds true.

Public vs Private Voices

I usually kept a diary when I was little. I would never ever ever let anyone read it, but I always wrote with the assumption that someone (my mom? my brothers?) would sneak a peek. I would sprinkle my entries with asides that were addressed to that violator of my privacy. "Today at school I got hit in the head by a four-square ball," I would write. Then I would add, "You think that's funny, whoever you are?" I didn't intend for there to be an audience, but in the back of my mind, I wrote as if there were one.

And so it is with this blog. I write my little blog anonymously. I don't give my real name, and I don't share, specifically, where I teach or which library I work at. There is a freedom that comes from that anonymity: I've spoken about my hopes, my fears, my politics, and my family without really worrying about what others think.

Judging by my recent blog stats, I see that I may not be as anonymous as I'd thought. On the one hand, this terrifies me. In the classroom and at the library, I want to project authority and confidence. Many of my words here undermine that. But on the other hand, my words demonstrate, I hope, my honesty, my love of writing, and my sincere belief that each of us is a work in progress, open to growth and new ideas. For me, writing is a way to explore those ideas. We can't change the past, but we can reflect on it and make changes for the future.

Anyway. We shall see.

Reality Check

At the start of (or end to) each quarter -- and too, I suppose, the weeks in between -- I become at once hyper-reflective and hyper-critical. And I think many of my complaints, my self-doubt, and my insecurities undermine the fact that I do a good job. I focus on where and how I need to improve, but I don't mean to suggest that someone else could step in and do it better. I enjoy what I do, and it challenges me every day that I do it!

"Is Life Destiny or Determination?"

The main character in Achy Obejas' lovely short story, "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" asks that question. The ten-year-old and her parents have literally just gotten off the boat from Cuba, 1963, when the action starts. Throughout the story, the plot jumps from the day they arrive--the processing center in Miami with the well-meaning Catholic volunteer and the convenience store where they're amazed by all the products, where we learn about her father's expectations of America and dreams for his daughter--to moments in the future--the narrator's experience with lovers, male and female, and her father's disappointment and disavowal of her; her father's death of a heart attach in 1990 and her own experience with cancer shortly thereafter; the narrator's constant questioning of whether she and her family would have been better off staying in Cuba.

We'll be talking about this one today: how does the unchronological plot structure affect your understanding of the story and its characters? do you think the narrator is reliable, given that half of the time she's speaking from the point of view of a ten year old? what is the central conflict?

I ask these questions, and we search for valid answers, but I do think the best and most interesting fiction raises questions rather than answers them. Ah, well, as long as I keep pushing for that search for answers - even if it simply yields more questions, that's ok too.