On Writer's Block

It's been a little more than a week since I announced to the universe that I was going to try to write something here every week. My intentions were good, but my will power is in crummy shape. I am blaming it on what we folks in the business like to call writers' block.

As is the case with any creative project that involves a piece of paper (or a computer screen), the sight of one of these blank areas is guaranteed to induce brain-freezing terror in the individual responsible for bringing it's planned contents to life. Just coming up with the first word is a panic-producing moment, especially if you have a tendency toward perfectionism. Let's see, should I start with "The" or "Those" or even "What?" Maybe "Where" or "When" would be more appropriate.

That seemed daunting until I realized that I had no idea at all what I used as the first word in this little piece. I could have started off with "Lightning" and I would have just as easily have forgotten it. That, of course, means I have to find a word with such power and presence that I couldn't possibly forget it. Maybe something unexpected like "Maudlin" or "Execrable." Even a shocker like "Death-defying" or "Oozing" might work. The problem inherent in those is figuring out what on earth to follow them with.

I keep being told by experts (in print, of course) that I should simply start writing about anything and the prose would start to flow naturally, creating a memorable piece with little effort after the first sentence. If I were to write something like that, the first word would absolutely have to be "Bull****."

I am also told that writers' block has little to do with the piece being written, but has much to do with the general well-being of the author. That may hold a bit of water, as I find when I have too much time on my hands I get stuck between projects, unable to move much on any of them. I have some crocheting to finish. There is a half-finished painting sitting on my easel. The vacuum cleaner has been plugged in to the dining room wall socket for about a week, and the spider web still sits in the corner of a close-by window. The hope is that by writing this little ditty, I can kick my behind into gear to get moving on the rest of my endeavors.

I'll let you know if that works. Right now I am doing something decisive. I'm going to bed. See you next week!

Has someone forgotten it's October?

It's my favorite time of year, when the leaves are turning to brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow, the air has a cool snap to it, and the frost is on the pumpkins. Now I must qualify that statement. It is fall, which I love, but it's currently in the 80's, the leaves aren't doing a doggone thing, and the only item in the air is record levels of fall pollen and mold. I have a cough that sounds like it's coming from a rhinoceros, and it is accompanied by a constant runny nose and the occasional bout of uncontrollable sneezing. What has happened to October?

By the time Halloween rolls around, I fully expect too see trick-or treaters dressed as California beach bums, carrying their surfboards and wearing the latest in swimwear. No heavy Darth Vader costumes this year; it's way too warm. As for the obligatory pumpkins, many of them were decimated by the monsoon season we had during late August and early September. We had over 23 inches of rain, and pumpkins do not float well.

Any blooms that remain on my personal pumpkin vine are now being eaten by an extra-hungry woodchuck. He took up residence in my yard last year, and I never get to see him at a time when I can run out and scare him away from the blossoms. The result?  I have one fake pumpkin to put on my porch this year, and it killed me to spend $15 on the dumb thing. The woodchuck will someday go into hibernation for the winter, but it is not happening any time soon.  A thermometer that says 81 degrees does not signal "Time for snuggling up and sleeping." Rather it tells me, and evidently the local vermin, that it's time for a protracted last hurrah at the expense of my gardens.

At the expense of my physical comfort, there is a bumper crop of mosquitoes this fall, another leftover from the monsoons. One trip to the recycling bin (about ten feet from the back door) and I return to the house trailing a line of buzzing buddies, and sporting a minimum of a half-dozen itchy welts.

I recently got within a couple of feet of an extremely brazen rabbit, who looked at me carefully for a full minute, then ate a petunia. I admit it made me laugh, which only, I am sure, encouraged him further. Next it will be the zinnias. Oh, and speaking of zinnias, the combination of the rain, heat, and now unrelenting sunshine has created a monster in my zinnia patch. I have some sort of zinnia-beast which has grown to a height of about seven feet, and is hiding my beautiful new blue spruce from the passers-by. I am sure the radioactive spiders are next.

All I have to say is that when the month of October arrives, I am ready to stock the wood pile, rake up leaves, bring out the blankets, and get my stock of houseplants in off of my deck. Instead, this year, the houseplants will be enjoying the great outdoors for a while longer, growing more blooms and housing plenty of spiders. The blankets are still in the closet. I am resetting the air conditioning and wearing shorts. 

Why we have a city of animals

I'm glad I don't live in inner city Philadelphia. It's a beautiful place, but right now it's in big trouble. The level of violence, particularly shootings, is skyrocketing. In the last week, there have been eleven people shot in different parts of the city, including a two-year-old and a ten-year-old, and their 58-year-old grandmother. Those three were shot because some girls had a fight over a boy. The baby is still in the hospital, and still critical. The others have survived (some did not in other shootings), but at what cost?

I'm sure that lots of people in city government are having long conversations about the complex reasons why this is happening, but I can tell them one good solid way to stop it from continuing:

Put more effort into your schools, and do everything you can to lower the drop-out rate!


Philadelphia schools have had a drop-out rate of close to 50% for a long, long time, and the unemployment rate of young people who have dropped out is astronomical. When teens have no knowledge to use toward bettering their lives, and no income, the result is a desperate race to get what they can through any means possible. This includes stealing, dealing, and shooting people. When young males have no education to give them a sense of self-worth, they may decide that having a gun will make them feel powerful, manly. Using that gun becomes far too easy when there is no knowledge of other paths to manliness.

Having said that, the rate of pregnancies in the poorly-educated groups of teens is always high, as another way the boys in the crowd can feel like men is to be a father. Again, with no education to give them the knowledge of the responsibilities that fatherhood brings, they soon become absentee fathers, unsupporting mates, and at best poor role models. This can all be avoided, or at least diminished, when quality education is demanded for these children.

Philadelphia recently got taken to the cleaners by a woman who was charged with fixing whatever was wrong in the district's schools. She did, by most accounts, a terrible job. It cost the taxpayers nearly a million dollars to get rid of her, a million dollars that could have purchased books, art supplies, musical instruments, and more than a few teachers' salaries. I sincerely hope that an audit will be done of the district, so that whoever agreed to her hiring and then paying-off will be held accountable. Meanwhile, our school buildings are old and crumbling, there are no books in some classrooms, and teachers are afraid for their safety.

By the way, our new governor cut a huge amount from the money allocated for city schools, as well as slashing funds for state colleges. I can't help but feel like nobody gets it.

Gets what? The connection between successful education, for a minimum of 12 years, and an adult population that is able to find work, take care of themselves and their families, and who feel the need to be good citizens. When that education is lacking to the level it is in many inner city environments, we end up with a population of feral teens and young adults, existing on poor interpretations of animal instinct. If no one ever teaches peace, our only choices are different levels of war.

Please, Philadelphia, treat your children like your most important resource. Make sure they stay in school, and make absolutely sure that your schools are worth attending. It's very nice that we have a fifty-foot Claus Oldenburg paint brush statue on our Avenue of the Arts, but I'd rather see pencils and books and art supplies for the city's under served and under educated kids.

Bullying is not just for kids

I just finished reading a fascinating article on teachers who are bullies. It showed how teacher preference or indifference to certain students can cause the same kind of lousy feelings in a student as bullying by a peer. It amazes me that this is seen as a surprising piece of information. I have two children, both of whom were subjected to bullying behaviors, not only from their fellow students, but from teachers, administrators, and even counselors. I am thrilled to see the amount of attention this subject is getting in national press, and sincerely hope that the result will be more schools where a zero-tolerance anti-bullying policy is reality.

I have seen, over and over, institutions whose unwritten policies promote the downgrading and belittling of students who are "different."  These differences can take an incredible variety of forms, based purely on the worst part of an administrator's discomfort with students who may be"difficult" to teach. I know of children who have been called insulting names by a teacher, for an entire year. I know of a teacher who, more than once, slapped a female student in the face in front of an entire classroom. The student had disagreed with that teacher on an answer in a test, and had asked for help more often than the teacher saw as necessary.

A young lady in adaptive physical education spent her gym periods in a pool in a district building across the street from her high school. During one of her swim times, one of the gym teachers followed her up and down the pool as she did laps, calling her fat and lazy, and suggesting that the rest of her family was probably fat and lazy, too. She left the pool, got dressed in the locker room, and called home to tell her mother to "pick me up before I hurt somebody." For some reason the administration was never informed that she left school two hours early that day. I am not at all surprised.

I know of situations where special education students were called stupid by their teacher, where students who were seriously learning disabled were told by their counselor that they could probably get straight "A's" if they would just work harder. This was in the middle of a school-sponsored support group for students who felt they were being bullied because of their inabilities in standard classrooms..

I guess the answer to this insanity is more education, not only for the students, but also for the teachers and administrators. I spent a number of years as an actor/therapist, working with school districts where dysfunctional behavior was out of control, and where the student suicide rates were up. When students in these sessions were asked who their favorite person in the school was to talk to when they felt like they needed some support, the answer was almost universally the school custodian. Why are the janitors so popular? They don't judge; they just listen.

The ultimate answer to bullying is to educate all individuals on the sanctity and innate importance of every human life. People certainly don't have to like everyone else on the planet, but they do have to respect their rights to exist in peace and dignity. Too many of us learn to discriminate, judge, and even bully others from a very early age. It needs to stop.

Now what?

OK, it's official. I have retired. Permanently. I know full well I said the same thing last January, and then went back and taught four more terms. Well now I'm done. I was lucky enough to have a spectacular group of very smart and motivated students for my final class, so that made it easier, and harder. Ambivalence is coursing through my veins.

Yes, I will miss my students terribly, but there are some very good reasons for me to separate from my place of employment for the last 16 years, for instance:

The school has just hired the fifth Dean of the Faculty I will have dealt with since I started. Each one has arrived with a whole new style of communication, set of standards, and agenda for change. My adaptability has waned considerably over the years, so I don't think I would be ready to cave in to a new set of rules and regulations. In fact, I would probably fight them tooth and nail.

I am officially tired. I still approach each 4-hour lecture class with the same approximate level of energy and expectation I always have. In fact, I approach them with far more confidence and comfort than I used to. However, at the end of those classes I sit down at my desk and truly do not want to get up. After a few minutes, when I do uncurl myself into a standing position, it is difficult and rather painful, leading to a series of loud groans. I don't mind this when I am getting up from the sofa at home, as there is usually nobody available to hear me. At school, however, the halls tend to echo.

My patience has begun to fade. I still try my very best to be accepting and non-judgmental with my students. However, I have found that no one person has enough relatives to account for the number of funerals some need to attend, and I will not dismiss a young female from class for the evening because she has broken a fingernail, or is having a bad hair day. If a student's cell phone rings in class, I will answer it, and try very hard to embarrass the individual for whom the call was intended as well as the caller.

I am getting less adept at fudging my way through administrative tasks. I have always hated grades, and did really do my best to grade fairly and equitably, but I think the process leaves a lot to be desired, and my school's new computerized grading system leaves little room for flexibility. It does not understand the awarding of an "A" to a student who tries incredibly hard, but is not as quantitatively successful as his or her peers. It also does not know what to do with grades entered for class participation levels, usually expressed as a plus, minus, or check sign. It will only accept numbers. One of my favorite classes to teach was Public Speaking, but I haven't a clue why one student should get an 86 on a speech, and another an 88. I know an "A" or "B" speech, however, when I see one.

There is a massive difference of opinion when it comes to classroom expectations between the owners and top administrators of a small private college and the teachers employed by them. Those who can do teach, and those who can't, administrate. Anyone who has been a teacher at any level has my permission to agree with this statement. I won't tell.

Yes, I will miss my students, but you must have noticed I didn't say I would stop teaching, just that I had retired from formal education. I have already signed myself up to teach a couple of classes at my town's local senior center, and am looking for other opportunities. I have four or five drawings on canvas and wooden objects that are thirsty for some paint, and my writing needs lots of exercise. So I may have retired from one type of classroom, but as for others? I'm just getting started.

So vacate, already!

Here I sit, on the final day of my vacation, dreading the packing I will have to do tonight and the unpacking I will have to do tomorrow. When people plan their vacations, do they ever think of making sure their car will not be filled to the exploding point? Do they consider the possibility of packing only a few necessary items, or is it a rule of some sort that the amount you pack has some bearing on the amount of fun you will have while away? I seriously doubt it, but I do it anyway.

Every year I sit down and carefully make lists, planning exactly what I will need in the way of clothing, linens, food, medications, et al. Every year I bring too much, but forget something, and have to rush to the grocery store/drug store/ clothing store to fill in the inevitable blanks. We rent houses when we go on vacation, so I have to account for the things that I consider necessary and the original homeowner couldn't care less about. Like food.

This year it was a kitchen colander, or a strainer, as I had to explain to the non-English speaking young lady who helped me find one. She had been trying to tell me where the calendars were in a store devoted completely to the display and sale of thousands of varieties of plastic crap. I also needed a cutting board and a pizza cutter. I have lots of those things at home, but my landlord evidently doesn't strain pasta, cut up meat, or bake his own pizza. I found all of the items, for under $4.00. This is considered a victory.

Of course, now I have to decide whether to bring the new kitchen stuff home with me, or leave them so another renter can either destroy or swipe them. I swear that's what happened to the stuff I bought last year.
However, if I decide to cart home the new utensils, then I have to find room in the car and my kitchen when I get them back to my house.

A classic story from my family of origin involves a married couple of local professors (my Dad was a college administrator) who were coming to visit us one summer during a short vacation, and who showed up a day late. Their explanation was simple. The diagram that the husband had developed to pack their station wagon had not been successful, so they had to unpack everything and develop a new diagram. I have yet to decide if this was a good idea or just very strange. My family used to pack for vacation by stuffing a bunch of things into a bunch of bags, then stuffing the bags into the car. With any luck there would be enough room left for three kids and a large dog.

One year we bought a detachable luggage rack and piled everything on top of the car. We were about 100 miles into our trip when my brother noticed a suitcase in the middle of the road we had just traveled. Then another, then a couple of blankets. He mentioned this to my father, and we screeched to a halt and ran back a few hundred yards, retrieving our mangled vacation supplies. My current car has a roof rack. I have never used it.

History aside, I will struggle tonight to fit everything into suitcases and bags, then struggle tomorrow to load it all in, and then unload it one more time and put it away in its proper place, or somewhere close. Next year I know I will plan better.

The Reason Glamour Magazine has Never Called

When I was born and raised, back in the 1950's and 1960's, women were supposed to be glamorous. In fact, my mother insisted that I spend a few miserable months in charm school somewhere in my early teens. I learned how to walk, how to speak without ever really expressing an opinion, how to tilt my pinky finger when drinking tea, and how to appear glamorous at all times. The only thing I remember from charm school was how to tell what fork to use first. The rest is a distant blur.

Maybe that is because I was never destined to be charming. It has taken me quite a few years to come to terms with this, but now that my 65th birthday is fast approaching, I can honestly say I don't give a rat's behind. There. Was that glamorous enough for you? It was for me. As I sit here in my jeans, sneakers and t-shirt in front of the computer, I am totally comfortable with my glamour-free status. Here is how I have arrived at that conclusion:

I am sitting in front of my computer with the air-conditioner going full tilt, and I am sweating like a pig. There is nothing delicate or feminine about the way I perspire. I am soaked, with drips leaking from my ears to my shoulders, and my face is a fully reflective surface. My hair is kinky and damp, and showing no visible signs of a style. Glamorous women somehow withstand excessive heat, with nothing better than a handkerchief to dab at their moist cheeks. I need a bath towel.

I am long enough past menopause to be sprouting a few testosterone-fueled and very dark hairs on my chin. Not enough to spend thousands on a laser treatment, but enough to pull out a razor every morning and get rid of them before I scratch someone while doling out a hug. They are in direct proportion to the long white hairs suddenly appearing in the middle of my eyebrows. I swear they grow in overnight, from nothing to an inch or two in length, and sticking straight out as opposed to up or sideways. The hair on my head, however, seems to be getting thinner with every haircut. None of this seems very glamorous to me.

Also, my waistline has disappeared. I was never one of those hourglass-shaped lovelies, but at least I could wear a belt without it disappearing between two distinct folds of pudginess. Now I cut the belt loops off of my coats and sweaters. Maybe folks will think it's the clothing that drapes without an indent, and not the body.

I can not wear high heels. I had a grand old time back in the 60's and the 70's with my platform shoes and 5-inch heels, but just looking at what is selling in shoe salons currently makes my arches ache. I have my wonderfully comfy sneakers, and three different colors of my favorite walking shoes. None of those colors is chartreuse. There are two pair of sandals I can wear, one flat and one with about a one-inch heel. Even that feels risky. My balance seems to have disappeared with my waistline. I used to walk like a model. Now it's more like a Model T.

Makeup does not work on this face. I spend far more than necessary at my local cosmetics counter, but my attempts to achieve a "smoky eye" look more like an eye that has been firmly punched. My rosy cheeks are more likely from rosacea than from the correct color of blush, and any attempts at contouring look like I'm preparing for a football game in bright sunlight. Mascara is out. It makes my eyes itch. And I was actually trained as a makeup artist.

At some point I thought over all of these facts, as well as a few more, and decided that being glamorous just wasn't in my cards. I had a few minutes in my twenties when I could turn heads by walking into a room, but now it's probably because I have tripped over something. I think my most important accomplishments have not been based on looking just so, but more on what directions I chose to look. I was lucky to discover early on that glamour was pretty boring stuff, and had very little impact on the human race as a whole.

It's not that I look forward to being a frump as I get older, but I sure look toward continuing to make one big positive dent after another in the lives around me. I can't always look in the mirror and like what I see, but I sure do like who I see.