Change: 24,001; Amanda: 0

The time has come, friends. As much as I loved the original title of this blog (“Tales of a Sixth Grade Something”) and am naturally averse to change, I am now preparing for my new role as high school teacher (yay!), so it is no longer accurate. Frankly, I’m not sure it was ever a great name for the blog since I wrote far less about my first year of teaching than I might have liked or originally intended. But the nice thing about the transitory nature of the intertubes is that the title can continue to change to reflect my ever-changing life and authorship (I feel myself heading in a much more prose-y direction… stay tuned).

I puzzled and stewed over the new name for awhile, as I never have much confidence in my naming abilities (God help me if/when I’m a mom-to-be), but like with all good names, I knew it when I heard it. At the end of a largely silly but mostly reassuring meeting with my new co-workers (SO EXCITED TO CALL THEM THAT), the phrase “middle of the middles” was tossed about. The comment was made somewhat in jest and in relation to curriculum-mapping strategies - not any kind of deep or particularly inspiring discussion - but it hit me as an oddly perfect way to sum up the stage of life I find myself in.

A. and I joke about having our respective quarter-life crises, and I’ve read a plethora of new studies showing that “millenials” (or whatever the hell we’re agreeing to be called) are having difficulties transitioning into adult life in any of the ways an older society expects us to… and I can’t say I’m immune to all that. Everything about my life feels middle-esque right now. I’m no longer in my first job, but most likely not in my last either, so I’m about to begin a middle job (where I do plan to stay for a relatively long time, believe me). I’m no longer an ever-present part of my immediate family, but haven’t yet created my own, so I’m doing my own thing here inbetween. This is neither my first apartment nor my dream home; one year into a no-longer “new” relationship but not moving forward just yet; still feel like a kid but expected to be the adult… you get the idea.

So, “Middle of the Middles” it is, at least for now. Try not to get Jimmy Eat World songs stuck in your head every time you visit.

Summer Reading!

Check back to this post often: I'll be updating the list regularly as I am unemployed for the summer and have nothing else to do. :D

Completed:
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
It Gets Better - Dan Savage and Terry Miller
We - Yvgeny Zamyatin
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Hint Fiction - Edited by Robert Swartwood
Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
and just under the wire... Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Couldn't quite slog through:
The Sound and the Fury (audiobook) - William Faulkner (The stream-of-consciousness is really hard to follow while you're also navigating the busy streets.)

So the grand total: 10 books! I'm pretty proud of myself, actually. It's an average of a little less than a book per week, which is a pace I would love to continue... but with student essays and lesson planning looming, I know that's a very lofty goal. But I'm definitely going to try. :)

A Moderate Success

The end of April is upon us. While I most certainly did not achieve my goal of one poem/one day this month, I did much better than I really thought I would. I posted something nearly every day, and over 1/3 of those posts were originals. I easily doubled the number of total posts I had as of April 1st, and I read a lot of new things, which can never be complained about.

It's funny; in the first few days of the month, I wondered to myself, "I'm writing easily about simple, fun prompts right now... can I keep this up if some drastic, life-changing event happens this month?" The answer was no. Life-changing events repeatedly swept in and consumed my body, mind, and soul, preventing the clear head and time needed for my best writing. (Dad update: he's home and comfortably complaining about the lack of good television during working hours. Back to normal.) I guess the lesson here is that while I do still produce more under pressure (ahh, college), it is nice to have the distinctly adult luxury of deciding what's truly important to me (outside of work, anyway) on any given day.

And today, what's important is resting, reading, and readying myself for a kick-ass HoD show tonight. Thanks for reading almost every day, friends, and I'll be back again soon - 19 days left of school. :)

Something new to worry about

My dad had a heart attack today.

He's fine; Mom assures me that everything is fine and I shouldn't worry, although she should know better than to waste her breath. I always worry. Especially when my dad had a heart attack today.

The words still don't seem real - they're not words I like to own now. I've said them several times as the necessary calls and emails are made, but it still seems like I'm talking about someone else; maybe a TV character or something. So, I certainly don't have my own words yet to describe this day. I'll let someone else handle that for now, while I stay up too late and watch Letterman because I know that in an unfamiliar hospital bed 564 miles away, my dad can't sleep either and he's watching too.


Heart
By Rick Campbell

My heart was suspect.
Wired to an EKG,
I walked a treadmill
that measured my ebb
and flow, tracked isotopes
that ploughed my veins,
looked for a constancy
I’ve hardly ever found.
For a month I worried
as I climbed the stairs
to my office. The mortality
I never believed in
was here now. They
say my heart’s ok,
just high cholesterol, but
I know my heart’s a house
someone has broken into,
a room you come back
to and know some stranger
with bad intent has been there
and touched all that you love. You know
he can come back. It’s his call,
his house now.

Mission Accomplished

Today's read-around activity was a great success. So great, in fact, that I am now exhausted and consider my poetry-sharing duties fulfilled for the day. 123 kids read as many poems as they could in 25 minutes, which was usually between 6 and 10... so you do the math. I'll be checking out the insides of my eyelids.

Weekend "off"

I've been working more than not this weekend, including working to clean up the aftermath of a (small) kitchen grease fire. Good times.

I'm at work even now, in my classroom, frantically finding more poems to use for my read-around lesson tomorrow since I'm suddenly pushing it up a day. Don't let people tell you I'm inflexible.

Anyway, Poetry Foundation suddenly strayed from the children's section and led me here... and it might be my new most favorite thing EVER. I'll need to read it several more times, and not ALL of it applies directly, but it almost knocked me over on the first read. So much of me is in this poem, it's ridiculous. For one thing, she is SPOT ON about peanut butter. The rest is more open for interpretation.


Peanut Butter

By Eileen Myles Eileen Myles

I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
you know. And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know. All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old things,
re-released: swimming,
the sensation of
being dirty in
body and mind
summer as a
time to do
nothing and make
no money. Prayer
as a last re-
sort. Pleasure
as a means,
and then a
means again
with no ends
in sight. I am
absolutely in opposition
to all kinds of
goals. I have
no desire to know
where this, anything
is getting me.
When the water
boils I get
a cup of tea.
Accidentally I
read all the
works of Proust.
It was summer
I was there
so was he. I
write because
I would like
to be used for
years after
my death. Not
only my body
will be compost
but the thoughts
I left during
my life. During
my life I was
a woman with
hazel eyes. Out
the window
is a crooked
silo. Parts
of your
body I think
of as stripes
which I have
learned to
love along. We
swim naked
in ponds &
I write be-
hind your
back. My thoughts
about you are
not exactly
forbidden, but
exalted because
they are useless,
not intended
to get you
because I have
you & you love
me. It’s more
like a playground
where I play
with my reflection
of you until
you come back
and into the
real you I
get to sink
my teeth. With
you I know how
to relax. &
so I work
behind your
back. Which
is lovely.
Nature
is out of control
you tell me &
that’s what’s so
good about
it. I’m immoderately
in love with you,
knocked out by
all your new
white hair

why shouldn’t
something
I have always
known be the
very best there
is. I love
you from my
childhood,
starting back
there when
one day was
just like the
rest, random
growth and
breezes, constant
love, a sand-
wich in the
middle of
day,
a tiny step
in the vastly
conventional
path of
the Sun. I
squint. I
wink. I
take the
ride.

Rain, rain...

I'm beyond ready for warmth and sunshine. I'm also beyond ready for sleep this evening. Goodnight.

The Rain
by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.