If you thought I already had a passport, you were soooooo wrong.
If you are my mother and were told last Monday that I'd already dropped off my passport application, you have since been enlightened.
Truth is, nothing lights my fire like actual need...which is what debited airline tickets provided in proverbial spades. I printed up all my info, got my photos (the man taking them said I had a Mona Lisa thing going in response to my saying I looked severe) and dropped everything off downtown today with a check to expedite the whole process.
While getting the photos taken, I met a merchant marine heading to China. In line at the post office, I met a naturalized citizen getting a passport for her baby, a man considering going to Canada, a woman who did not speak (to any of us), and a woman who was shocked at how many people were waiting in line and so left. I'm enjoying the new people on this trip already!
I had a difficult time not giggling when swearing that all information was correct to my knowledge (reminiscent of applying for the ol' marriage license), but in 10 days I'll be all set to take a hammer to that electronic chip embedded in the back cover of my ticket to sabbatical joy.
I'm also delighted that I have a completely valid excuse to purchase a Moleskine citybook of Paris.
I can barely stay still long enough to type this because I just purchased tickets to go to France in April.
!!!!!!!
This trip will mark the official beginning of my sabbatical. Wahoo!
Much of the trip will be spent in my mother's tiny village, potentially speaking to no one. Maybe I'll start writing poetry on cloth napkins...no, I'll weave napkins with poetry in warp and woof!
Aren't the French lucky that I don't speak any French...yet?
An Amusing Tale from the Year 2000:
Ida is teaching a group of 3- and 4-year-olds. They are reading the book What! Cried Granny. It is about a little boy who spends the night at his grandmother's house. The cover features said boy holding a suitcase.
Ida: What do you think is in the suitcase?
Students: ... ... ...
To Ida, the obvious answer is pajamas. Or something similar to pajamas.
A: Uh...money?
Fin
I offer this up as an example that though something in the status quo may be rendering perspective askew, the skewed answer is often the iconoclastic-fantastic.
Unexamined life and all that...
The fifth graders with whom I've been working the past three weeks will perform for their peers and parents this Thursday. In one class, they journal after each rehearsal. Today I bring you excerpts from one kid's writings (formatting and spelling as sic as possible):
Week One, after learning roles:
This is the worst day of my frigin life! I never
get to be anything I want in class! I really,
really, really wanted to be big Tom, be Noooo
oooooooo, instead, I got to be the stupid
kettle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is even worst than
being on tv restriction. This is even worst
than me dying and going to hell! I think this
is stupid being the stupid kettle and reading
it's stupid lines. I was even crying in [class]
because I was so dang upset. I might just
want to pretend that I'm sick and miss the whole
damn [play] thing!!!!!!!!!!!
Week Three:
This is so exiting, only two more pages left until we do
[play]! I can't wait to do the really play.
Today was okay, and it was really painful. N. hit
me in the arm, G. whamed me into the stomack, and
C. stomped right through my arms. It was
so painful that I couldn't move my own arm!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!! We are getting
so good at
[the play]!!
We are getting really good at this.
I'm still thinking what my costume
would look like! [The play] is getting really exiting
now. I wonder If I'm going to get a costum
that is black and has feathers on it.
Yep, totally worth all that pre- and post- class drinking I've been doing. (Don't worry, I'm still taking a sabbatical.)
Oh, man this is making me drool.
If I only purchased the things that I always think I need, I would own an eviable clearinghouse of the following items:
Yes, there are other things I enjoy purchasing or actually need (like, y'know, food or something), but the above list includes the items that I would happily purchase and organize every single day. Oh, man.
If I expand the list to things I want to buy everyday but am better at recognizing the connection to being unable to purchase necessary items or pay bills or save for the future, I have to add:
That said, I recently reorganized my yarn by color.
It is so gorgeous outside that I see no reason to write about how I was thinking earlier that if I got in a car crash I probably would be able to get out of my remaining residencies. Nope, it's just too pretty for that.
How about this instead: where did you like to hide when you were small? Not because you were scared necessarily, but because it was a nice place to go?
I'm writing a little story about a girl who can hear voices from under the sidewalk (that's a bit of a simplicfication, but it's part of it) and it got me thinking about the places where I felt like just me when I was a kid: between the hedges and my grandparent's house, up in the apple tree in our own backyard, on top of the shelf in the closets...where did you go?
Now it's into a classroom with me! (520 is not involved this afternoon, thankfully.)
((Holy fuck. I know you're all smarter than I and probably already know this, but I was just listening to music and reading about other music and one thing lead to another until I found out there is a solo artist called Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. I don't care what he sounds like--that's the answer to 520!))