Halloween fun

70 years ago tonight, many people across the county believed they were being attacked by aliens. Nothing to do? Here's the original broadcast.
(Link is to the right of the text.)


War of the Worlds

Notes from the briars...

I am starting to feel as if I'm turning the corner to getting back on top of my life. There is a glimmer of satisfaction in that. I am fanning it wildly to create a savage roaring glow. All things, I suppose have their dips, life being a journey and all that. I still yearn for something that will be our own.

I have found strength in Tracey. She is always my rock, and I try to be hers often. Five years of marriage has proven to us, I think, what my Poppa used to say - Married is Better. It is strange, but somehow, as if by magic, the love and trust and bond seem to multiply in magnitude of order 10.

I am striving to be a good teacher. I work hard to make a difference for them. I feel similar pangs, though... what is right for them is often disregarded by those that might help me effect such change. Mealworm? I am hungry now. Hungrier than ever before for this career. I am digging my bunker and preparing for long winters. (Metaphorically, of course - being that I live on the surface of the Sun.)

If only... that seems to ring loudly in my head lately. I wish I could go back sometimes and re-do things at Compass. Not for my sake, but for theirs. I know so much more now - what could be different today.

I segue now, not out of guilt, but out of mournful reminiscense. Adrian Calvillo, a student of mine (of ours, friends) took his own life a few weeks back. He was a bright, funny, amazing, talented kid. He made the world better... maybe that's all we can really ask of somebody. Rest in peace, Adrian. I will always remember your mischievous laugh and your angsty-but-brilliant poetry.

Anyway... love from the battlements,

Jed

Half-eaten chicken.

I realize it's been a while since I spent the time to reflect a bit on my swirling tide-pool of a life. Alas, time, I have not. Blogospheria, lately, has consisted mostly of lurking low and reading the fine things my dear friends have to say. I too wonder if Leonard Cohen would eat homemade pumpkin pie and wax long in sophisticated prose of the ludicrousness of our current lack of political representation. I am enthralled by the talk of fashion-ready bike helmets and community building in the land of hormone-fueled monsters. I bow to thee, beloved wordsmiths. Indeed, in measure I am lacking.

I started a new job a month ago. A hard job. The hardest I have ever had, I think, because I really care about doing it right. Doing it well. Doing it... something. I think I am a good teacher. I know way more than I ever thought I would about the craft of teaching and mentoring. I have practiced and become fairly competent. But, smash it together with an over abundance of administrative tasks, litigation-happy parents, and the overall joys of special education... man is I tired. Grammar is beyond me, aren't they?

This isn't a play-by-play post, though. This is a contemplative post. A quiet resignation to the fact that I have chosen what is probably the hardest profession on Earth. I am the keeper of future thought, and I am scared.

Details are best left for beer-soaked chats with puebloan friends whom, I must address, we miss terribly. Perhaps the realities of what this year has been for us have not sunken in. Or, rather, perhaps they are beginning to. The motto seems to be this: It hurts to be lied to.

Maybe this post smacks of black fingernail polish and for that I am sorry. I am happy with my "new life." I just hope the price for it isn't a total loss of what was before.