All Is Calm, All Is Bright.

It's Christmas Eve, 2007, and I just wanted to wish everyone who reads this blog a merry Christmas. My wife and I always spend it here in the city. We see a movie in the afternoon (today it was National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which was an okay little movie for the season). We had people over after that to talk, laugh, drink, and be merry, and there'll be more company tonight and more of the same, I'm sure. Its probably my favorite night of the year. As Bill Murray says in "Scrooged" (love that movie), it's the one night of the year we all act a little nicer and treat each other a little better. Maybe that's a generalization, but as generalizations go, I like that one.

From my home office window, I can see the lights shimmering in windows of other people's homes, a few lonely cars stream by, and the melting snow glistens like frosting on a cake. The whole world seems to be slowing down and it will stay that way for a few hours. For a few hours, the world will be perfect. Hopefully, somewhere, the violence will stop, the burglaries will pause, and the singing will rise to a heartfelt anthem in some far-off countryside church. I wish it were so more often.

Merry Christmas to you all, whatever your situation, whatever your beliefs. I hope this night finds you with someone you love, having everything you need to be happy. If your situation is otherwise, then I hope you can find some peace and comfort not just now, but for most days to come because Christmas doesn't change your life; it illuminates it for what it is.

For now, though, the weary world rejoices. Merry Christmas.

And So This is Christmas, And What Have You Done?

For the first time in many years, I've been able to witness the coming of the winter season, December, and Christmas as if in slow motion, enjoying every moment as it comes, lingers briefly, then passes. It's so strange not to be grading papers and working on a Ph.D. thesis or a paper of some kind. But I think life was meant to be this way--not the other way. I often think of that line in A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Jacob Marley says to Scrooge, "Mankind is your business."

In fact, I have more time to think than usual this year, as well. I've been walking in snowstorms, I've stood in front of a window and marveled at the large flakes of snow that were falling, and I've heard the wind bellowing beneath the eaves, threatening to blow away the rooftop. I've taken my time Christmas shopping and am nearly done. I always leave something to do for the last week before the big day, and I certainly will be out there on Christmas Eve, just taking it all in, sipping on a hot tea while I watch the crowds bustle around. I guess it makes me feel more connected to people through their harriedness in some way. I feel like I'm just sitting there thinking "I'm glad I'm not you" at the same time that I'm thinking, "You poor soul, don't take it all so serious. You'll get it done and you'll be all right."

Of course, by not teaching this year I do feel a little more disconnected from humanity than usual. I've rarely seen any of my teaching colleagues except occasionally when I'm at MUN playing badminton or running the track just to keep atrophy at bay. They must think I'm strange and wondering what I'm doing when I'm not teaching. A few know that I'm writing and that I'm just a bit burnt out after the years of constant working. The majority don't really think about it, I'm sure. Mankind, after all, is not necessarily their business.

I've missed the students most of all, I must say. During exam week, I could sense the usual tension that they feel as exams draw close and the end draws near. For me, it's always that feeling of being proud of the ones who have not only made it to the end, but made something of it--having tried and, hopefully, been rewarded. I always look for that sense of closure, that the semester is done, that my course is done, that these students will go on to live their lives, and most of them I will never see again. A lot of them, I will see over and over again, of course, as some lives seem destined to intersect. This year, however, there was no "next wave" of students, no exam anxiety, no end of semester, and no whispered "Have a good Christmas" as they passed me their exams. All of that is part of why I love teaching, and I'm really looking forward to getting back it next fall. It's that connection that matters to me. The feeling of perhaps having made a difference, however small, if only for a few weeks, but hopefully for much longer.

My two favorite Christmas movies are "Scrooge" and "It's A Wonderful Life". Both are a celebration of life, an acknowledgement of life's difficulties, a lament for the past, and yet a declaration that the future need not be judged by the past. The future can be bright no matter how dim the past has been. The goodness in people can overcome the dark, the evil, and the apathetic (which might be the greatest evil of all). If it is true that most men live lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau), then both these films suggest that it is never too late too shake of the cloak of self-oppression and begin to live anew as if every day counted, as if every human being mattered. That's a lesson that I think gets lost in the daily grind of working and studying, sometimes even playing. Every soul matters. Every moment is precious. Profound, disturbing, magnificent thoughts.

For if your life matters, who is to say that there are others whose lives don't? If you have a right to be warm, fed, clothed, befriended, and loved, who is to say that there are other people who do not deserve these things? And yet there are those who don't have them, who suffer even as I write this, without adequate clothing or shelter, without any friends or family. Even in between the highs and the lows, there are people who have places to live, who work their jobs and/or go to school, and maybe even have families who love them or not (as the case may be). And yet they feel great sadness, especially at this time of year when "want is most keenly felt".

Dickens was right, of course. Want is most keenly felt this time of year. But so is luxury. So are happiness and contentment. Christmas is like anything else--it doesn't change what you are or how you feel about life, but it does emphasize what you already have and already are. If you were lonely before Christmas, then the carol singing and lack of friends or presents will only underline that loneliness and increase it. If you were content, appreciative of your life and choices you've made, then you will be extra content, extra appreciative during the sesaon.

I'm beginning to babble, as I am sometime wont to do, but as usual there is so much I want to say about this time of year. It makes me a bit melancholy because I'm just that kind of person anyway. But I'm happy as well because I'm generally a happy person who sees the good in other people even when the world we live in kind of scares me a bit. But, as always, that's a topic for another day.

I think here in Newfoundland we are standing on the precipice of a great height (a "sad height," perhaps, as Dylan Thomas might have called it). It's a time to think on where we've come from and how we got here. Things are changing rapidly because of the impending changes in economic fortune. Some of it good, some of it bad. It's the time of year for putting those things in perspective and deciding which direction our own personal lives will follow in the coming year. I know where I'm headed and where I'd like to be this time next year. It might very well be, for many of us, though, that we're already there and just need to put some time and thought into recognizing that fact.

Life is good and getting better.

And to all a good night.

Walking in a snowstorm

Just got back from a walk in the wintery white of old St. John's. It's our second storm in a couple of days, and, amazingly, I'm not sick of it yet--even though the power went out for a few hours Sunday night. Not so bad really, as I remember some of the worst power outages this province has ever seen. Even then, it was fun. Cold, but fun. Strange how it always seems to happen around exam time for MUN students that the power goes out for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the severity of it.

It's been a day of writing. I'm working on a new gothic novel called Emily Dickinson's Ghost, which is taking on some pretty serious and sinister undertones and overtones. But I decided also to dust off a work I've had in progress for a couple of years now, a holiday-themed novel called Keeping Christmas. It's about halfways done and I just re-read it this morning. It's probably about the funniest thing I've ever written (of course, with some of the usual dark humour), so I think I should just keep working on it. I've already had a publisher interested in it, so I guess those are the ones I should finish. So now I'm working on two novels at once--one in the daytime and one in the night time. Very Jekyll and Hyde of me, I suppose.

As for my previous novel, Darwin Day, it's now in the hands of an editor, so we'll see. I've had a couple of passes from literary agents on this one, but that's not surprising. It's not what I would call a "big" novel; it's not the one that's going to make anyone's career, but it's a story I wanted to tell, so it had to be done. But it's definitely worth publishing, so I'm taking a different tact by approaching publishers instead of agents. But I'm doing it one at a time for now because that's what they prefer. It's a slow process, but I pass the time by working on something new.

Speaking of which, I don't think I've mentioned on here that my short story, "Break, Break, Break" is going to be published in an upcoming anthology of dark fiction by Hard Ticket Press. The story takes place on February 13, 1982--a horrible day in our province's history in the fictional town of Darwin, where a lot of my stories take place, and concerns a teenaged girl who breaks up with her boyfriend on Valentine's, the night before the Ocean Ranger sinks. I never thought I'd write anything about the Ranger, but I got inspired one night last summer when the editor, Mike Heffernan, asked if I'd ever considered writing about it. My immediate reaction was to say no. But that night I tossed and turned all night while I kept (swear to God that this is how it works sometimes) hearing these two voices in my head--a mother and a daughter, and they were saying these things to each other that frightened me, but I felt like I was eavesdropping. It was stormy, in my dreams, and I knew it was because I'd been thinking about Mike's suggestion. Anyway, I didn't sleep at all that night, and when I got up the next morning, I sat at the computer right away and emerged from my den about two and a half hours later with a completed story, some of which came straight from my dream. I wish it happened like that more often. I sent it off to the editor and he accepted it almost immediately, with some revisions of course, though not too many, which is always nice.

I'm thrilled to be a part of that anthology because there are lots of other really good authors in there, including Michael Crummey, Michelle Butler-Hallett, JoAnne Soper-Cook, and Bev Vincent. I've also agreed to write a stage play based on "Break, Break, Break," to be produced (possibly at the LSPU Hall) next February, as part of a six-part series of one-act plays all dealing with the Ocean Ranger. That's another reason I'm proud of that story--because it's about a very important subject that humanizes the tragedy a little, underscoring the devestating effects that it had on certain people. I can't say that I know for sure what that felt like for those people, to have lost someone so quickly like that. But I've known tragedy in my life that I was able to draw on. And the Ranger tragedy affects us all, even today, even younger generations, even if they weren't born when the rig went down off our coast.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. It kind of puts things in perspective. I've been out for a walk on a stormy day and I was able to enjoy it completely. I love that I'm still able to feel exhilirated by little things like that and maybe even put those feelings to words when I feel driven to do so. It's part of what being a writer is all about, but it's also what being human and reveling in life's little pleasures is all about. Reminds me a bit of that old chestnut, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I still love that poem and that's why I teach it in my first-year English classes whenever I can--to show that there is complexity sometimes in the apparent simplicity. That there can be clarity in the midst of chaos.

That sometimes you've just got to stop and take a breath when you can least afford to do so, on the "darkest evening of the year".

Anyway, got work to do. Hope you're enjoying whatever you're doing, even if that's writing exams or meeting deadlines. We only pass this way once, and it's the in-between times that really are the best times. Nobody sick, nobody dying. All's right with my world.

Face To Face

The problem is that there’s so much to write about. I see subjects for discussion and speculation everywhere—Christmas in November, daylight savings time in November(!), man’s inhumanity to dogs, paparazzi on the “Britwatch,” my first bout with writer’s block or whatever you want to call it, the Facebook saga, and on and on the list goes. I’ve started writing and then stopped, almost overwhelmed by the combination of how much there is to say and the nagging thought that no one is really listening anyway. Now there’s the REAL writer’s dilemma. It will always be that way. In fact, it’s that way for any artist, whether writer, painter, sculptor, or musician: I always have too much to say, too little time in which to cram it all in, and when all is said and done, who is really paying attention?

I wonder that about the world a lot. I mean who is REALLY paying attention? I’ve been haunted and stymied lately by the barrage of information, and not necessarily useful information, about people’s insensitivity to the people around them, to the planet, and to their own basic needs. Sometimes I fear that we’re all just going to obliterate ourselves. But then, I guess it is what it is, if that happens. More likely, we’ll just evolve into something else, having destroyed something precious about ourselves and our species at the same time.

Take Facebook, for example. I love it and hate it at the same time. I’ve always been the sort of person that, if I like you or want to get to know you, I’ll spend time with you and talk to you face-to-face. I’ve never been a big fan of the telephone, which is why I don’t own a cellphone. I’m not saying I’ll never buy one, but for now I get by just fine without people knowing where I am and being able to contact me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I know they have their uses, which makes them somewhat attractive. And I know some people who swear they could never get by without theirs (which is a lie to oneself, really), but it’s my choice to save some of me for me. I like having downtime, some time when the world doesn’t know where I am, what I’m doing, or how I’m feeling.

Facebook has been a gift, in the sense that it allows me some control over the kind of information I put out there. There is still a certain amount of anonymity because people will judge you by what you say, for the most part, at “face” value. I’m sure people will also speculate about what you’re not saying (I know I do)—in fact, I find that I worry more about people these days than I used to. I’ve always wished I could stay in contact with some students long after they’ve done my course and even graduated from MUN—some students manage to do this. I’ve known some people for nearly ten years now, who did a course from me in first year university in the late 90s. That, to me, is what it’s all about. I like knowing how people are doing and not just in a surface kind of way. But that’s my burden to bear.

Facebook allows people to put stuff out there and then I’m left wondering—“should I respond to this?” I mean, not just as a human being, but as a prof who’s concerned about his former students, do I even have the right to say, “You know, I’m paying attention and I hope you’re doing okay”? Maybe, maybe not.

I think it’s this whole “friends” idea that gets me. I can honestly say that I like all of the people who have signed on to be my friends. It’s a nice feeling. But whether they actually want me paying that much attention to their lives or not…well, somehow, for most of them, I doubt it. I think I’m supposed to ignore when people are hurting or sad or missing someone or need a surgery or are just in a great mood and want the world to know it. It’s enough for me to just see this and move on with my life. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do.

But I’ve always been empathic. Or empathetic. Not sure which is the right word, actually. But I’ve always cared a little more about people and been able to understand them and read between the lines a bit more than the average person. That’s partly what makes me a writer—not because I can string words together better than anyone else, but because I think I understand a bit about the human condition and I have a need to express it.

Technology is an ambiguous invention that leaves me feeling ambivalent. On the one hand, it brings you closer to people you ordinarily wouldn’t have much contact with. On the other hand, it gives people a reason to stay apart—to never HAVE to see each other face to face. More and more, we’re becoming a society that is intent on keep people apart. That’s what the Blackberry is all about—so that people can be in your company or attending a lecture or movie or whatever and can bury themselves in their Blackberries, iPods, or text-messaging apparatus.

Do we really need all this information at our fingertips? I’ve already got more than I know what to do with—and I’ve got a ton of really great books on my bookshelf that I should have read. I should be going out for walks, enjoying the fresh air. I should be spending time with my wife. I should be writing. I should be spending time with family and friends, hanging out, having lunch and coffee together, playing some sports. All of that, and more. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

My writing hasn’t been going so well lately, but that’s a topic for another day. There are probably lots of factors, but it does bother me that for the first time in my life, I’m having a mild spell of what some people call “writer’s block”. I think that’s worth exploring. Maybe it’ll give me some empathy towards people who do claim to have writer’s block. Before, I’ve always said that all you have to do is sit yourself down and write, that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. I’m still not sure there is, but that is for next time, maybe. Or maybe I'll have something else on my mind by then.

Thanks for being patient with me. I think I got buried there for a while, but I’m probably back now. My promise to myself is to become more regular at writing these blog entries over the next few weeks. Even if there’s one person reading it, that’s plenty for me. (And for the one “anonymous” person who wrote to remind that I have a “patient” audience waiting, thank you for reminding me. Really.) It’s like a time capsule in a way. It doesn’t matter who’s reading now because this page can be discovered years from now by someone who might find it interesting.

Isn’t technology wonderful?

That's debatable.

Watched the provincial election debate last night and surprised myself by actually enjoying some of it.

Forget Gerry Reid. I know the man is doing a job that nobody else wanted and he at least had the cajones (or self-delusion) to step up and be at the front of the room for his caucus. But I absolutely despise everything the man stands for. He criticizes the government simply for the sake of criticism itself. Williams is right--he's just a negative person who, left to his own devices, would certainly drag Newfoundland thirty or forty years into the past. He doesn't seem to get it at all that in order to get anywhere, we all have to row this big ol' boat together. Nothing wrong with asking the captain if he's sure we're headed in the right direction or telling him when the boat is leaky or we need a couple of new oars, or there's a definite storm on the horizon. But Fletcher Christian was a bit deluded too and Captain Bligh (taskmaster though he was) at least knew how to navigate rough seas.

I thought Lorraine Michael, NDP leader, was the surprise of the night. I didn't really expect much from her. She seems like a smart lady, very nice, and all that. But I never saw her as someone who was capable of being leader of the opposition before. Well, now I do. She not only spoke extremely well--more articulate in her vision and very specific in her examples of what needed to be done better--than either of the other two party leaders. I'm still not sure I'd want her leading the government (which won't happen anyway), but I like that she showed she coudl stand up to Danny Williams without being disrespectful or ignorant. I was really impressed with her and if you judge "winning" a debate by how many minds you are able to convert from the original position, then I think she won, easily.

Danny Williams was himself, plain-spoken, straightforward, and sensible. There were some questions he didn't answer directly and now and then he makes me a bit squeamish with his methods of getting things done. He was a bit confrontational about things that really didn't require confrontation, such as when Michaels said that she'd gotten phone calls from disgruntled voters late at night. Williams said it bothers him that she would say that because that just makes him look bad. Well, fair enough. But she says it happened and I believe her. Maybe it was only once or twice, but the fact is, she can't take it back just because it implies someone isn't doing their job properly. It was a small point that Williams made bigger by attacking the messenger.

Still, Williams didn't hurt himself at all in the debate. He's still the people's choice and will remain so until, or unless, he slips up badly soon or in the coming years.

Michaels will gain a lot more support after last night, maybe even enough to gain a couple more seats. It won't take more than a handful to become the official opposition. We'd all be better off if that happened.

As for Gerry Reid, well, hopefully those poor old souls who have always voted liberal because their fathers and grandfathers voted Liberal will finally give up the ghost and vote for progress and positivism instead of negativity and fear-mongering. If he lost his Twillingate seat tomorrow, it wouldn't be too soon, as far as I'm concerned.

Scores on the debate:

Williams- B+
Michaels- A-
Reid- D

Dreams in Fall

What a shocker it was this morning to wake up to September. The north wind is cold and blustery, not a hint of sun in the sky. Change, literally, is in the air.

Everywhere I turn, there’s something changing for someone. The students are arriving back in the city in dribs and drabs. Some are excited to be here after a summer away, while lots more are disgusted and weary at the thought of another semester of writing essays and attending classes, always being tired and stressed with deadline after deadline. But it’s another year closer to finishing school for good, which, for some people, can be scary in itself because who knows what comes next?

People are back from vacations, heading back to work, half asleep behind the wheel, dejected that summer is over before it had barely begun. I’ve already seen the geese flying in V-formation across Mundy Pond, dipping their wings in the water before taking flight across the tall thrushes that circle the pond’s edge. The stores are selling Halloween decorations and candy, trying to get the jump on the competition.

I think that’s what people who don’t like this time of year feel most uncomfortable with. September is like the end of a dream in which warm weather is the norm, you can wear what you want, be what you want, go where you desire. September brings rules and business, reminders that the world is competitive, which is why summer can’t last. We have to get up early, go to school, go to work, spend our day being busy, either making money or preparing to make money. Because it’s commerce that makes the world go around. That’s what it’s all for—the studying, the working, the courses, the years of slaving away: getting a job and making a living in order to make a mark on the world, maybe raise a family so that your children can follow in your money-earning, mark-making footsteps. In the summer, we try to forget all of that stuff. But in September, we are reminded, if only subconsciously, that any bohemian dreams can’t last, that eventually reality has to set in and we have to wake up.

Strangely, I’m not all that cynical. The need to make money is a reality, so there’s no point in chafing against it. The idea, I think, is to make sure you’re doing something you enjoy or, at least, do something that will hopefully lead to something you’ll enjoy.

Which is why I’m taking this semester (at least) off from teaching to work on my writing. While I love teaching more than a reasonable person ought to (or so I’ve been told), I have always dreamed of being a writer. I put it off for a while in order to make a living, or to do the courses and programs that would allow me to make a living. That’s the business of life. But now it’s time to follow a dream. I’m at an age now when most people I know have put their dreams aside, setting both feet firmly into the land of raising families and earning a living, effectively putting their hopes on the shoulders of the next generation. Our parents do that sometimes—by their actions, they often tell us that it’s okay to give up on what you wanted out of life so that someone else can do it instead.

Sometimes, though, I think it’s only right to finish what you started—to show that you don’t have to give up on your dreams after thirty-five. Too often, in schools and universities (and sometimes at home), we tell children that your most important task is to get an education that will get you a good job. But what comes after that? It’s important, as far as I’m concerned, to hold onto your dreams—the things that you want more than anything, that will make you happy—no matter what. Because that’s what we’re living for, isn’t it? If we’re not making ourselves happy, we can hardly expect to make anyone else happy. I know far too many people who finish school, get the job, even get the family they wanted, then walk around in a state of quiet desperation.

Having said that, I’m trying to make the transition from teacher to writer, at least for the coming year. In summer, it was easier because classes were out, mostly, and my brain kept telling me that, come the fall, I’ll be back in the class room.

I already miss it. For every September since I can remember, I’ve always been in a classroom somewhere—either as a student or as a teacher. It’s in my blood, and I’m sure I’ll wander to campus every now and then just to take in all the usual sights and sounds of my favourite time of year.

But, ultimately, it’s me and my keyboard, sitting in my office at home or in a downtown coffee shop, hacking out the next short story, play, or novel that—while not necessarily bringing either fame or fortune—will make me feel more comfortable in my own skin because it’s what I wanted to do more than anything else, like drawing the sword from the stone. I’m not trying to make the world a better place; I’m just trying to make my world a better place.

And that amounts to the same thing.

Busted!

I've been neglecting my blog, and I fear that it will soon be taken away from me by some gov't agency that's responsible for blog protections services or something like that.

There's just so much going on, and it's been summer time, and I've just let it go for a little while. I've got tons to say, and I'm going to start saying it again soon. Thanks for being patient with me. I've been bad. But soon I'll be good again.

Must go watch the last half of the ballgame. Talk to you again real soon! Promise.

G

Facing Facebook: Yet Another Sign of the Coming Apocalypse

Okay, I did it. I signed up for a Facebook account. For months now, I've been answering "leave me alone" to the question "So, are you on Facebook?" I've been inundated with requests for well over a year now, and it was becoming a badge of honor for me that I just politely declined all such suggestions.

I can't say that I gave in to peer pressure. That wasn't it. I guess I wasn't ready to see the wonders of Facebook and the glorious worlds that it would open up for me. And I'm still not ready to admit that I was wrong. But I am ready to admit the possibility that I may have been mistaken. But I'm waiting to see. Sort of like the jury in the Conrad Black trial. They came back to the judge and said, "We can't decide." I love the judge's response: "Get your ass back in there and decide!" Seems the United States of America has more than one "decider"--besides the big guy, I mean. George W. I wonder is he on Facebook? I should check and, if he's there, maybe give him a poke. God knows, he could use one.

I won't go into my reasons for not joining Facebook until now. I guess I just considered myself too busy or whatever. I guess we all are, for that matter. It's all about making and keeping connections, or re-connecting with old friends, from what I understand. Okay. I'll buy that. But, as with so many things, I am a skeptic, but I am willing to see the light. If Facebook performs wonders for my social life, such as it is in its current state, then I am willing to admit I was wrong about it and I will buy the snake oil, I will drink the Kool-Aid, I will salute the flag, and I will kiss its ring.

It reminds me of the whole Star Wars phenomenon. I was a kid when it came into the theatres for the very first time, but I didn't see it because I wasn't a sci-fi fan. Everyone kept trying to persuade me to go because it was the newest and coolest thing that I "just have to see." I resented the pressure, so I never went. I stayed home and watched the radio. Sometimes I even turned it on. Then there was The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. Never saw either one until I was in my late twenties. Finally, after years of mental abuse by friends and family, all clamoring: "But you HAVE to see Star Wars? How can you not?" Resistance was futile, I guess, because I gave in and rented it on home video, and you know what?

I didn't like it.

Everyone raved about Yoda as the great philosopher. But all I saw was a cute muppet who spewed dimestore philosophy to the starving masses who had never heard such "wisdom" before. George Lucas was using Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobe as mouthpieces for a string of philosophical pearls that he knew would keep audiences coming back time and again.

The sad part is, I did. When Parts I, II, and II came into the theatres, I went to see each of them, even though I grew increasingly disenchanted with each one. Critics raved how the final film in the series was the best one since the first one.

I didn't like it. Hated it, in fact. Barely sat through it all without walking out. (I've never walked out of a theatre while the movie was still playing. Unless I had to go the bathroom, of course.)

Anyway, so I tend to be a johnny-come-lately. I rented the Godfather I and II a few years ago and fell asleep--through BOTH of them. I was just tired. No commentary on the movies there. And it wasn't that I'd been avoiding the Godfather trilogy for any great philosophical reasons. I just never got around to renting it.

So now there's Facebook. After I'd successfully avoided MySpace for a couple of years, there's a new e-kid on the block. We'll have to see how it goes.

I'd say I'll give it a try, but as Yoda knows: "There is no try, only do or do not."

So I did. Anyone care to tell me why?

G

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I've been away for the past couple of weeks, spending some time beyond the overpass. I finished the first draft of my novel, Darwin Day, just before leaving and I'm pleased with it so far, but I'll be able to tell a lot better once revisions are complete. That always makes the difference.

My wife and I spent some time Twillingate, visiting her sister, and we had a great time, as we always do together. Saw tons of icebergs, flora and fauna, roamed the hills and beaches, and just relaxed. For me, it's probably the first time I've relaxed that much in nearly seven years, before the Ph.D. program began. Its a hard thing to describe. Something about the central part of this province is like heaven to me--just getting outdoors and not having so much traffic and noise around me all the time. It's like going to another planet...a better planet.

There's lots that I like about St. John's--mostly the bookstores, coffee shops, and movies. But I sometimes think I could give all of that up for a house and some land far from the madding crowd, somewhere in central Newfoundland.

We took the early morning ferry to Fogo Island and spent the day just beating around there. Stopped at a bakery for some tea, homemade toast and partridgeberry jam. Drove around the island, just looking for places to stop, chat for a while, take some pictures, and, if possible, get into a bit of mischief. A life without mischief, you see, is hardly a life at all. And harm to none, of course, as the wiccans say. My favorite spot was this fairly secluded sandy beach. There was a light breeze blowing, with no people around, and we just walked, ran, and acted like children for an hour or so. Beaches turn me into a different person; that's probably the best way to describe it. No more grading essays, reading books, using computers, or talking on telephones. If there is a heaven, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any of those things, especially the latter. Heaven would have books, of course, but only good books--the kind that you read because you want to or because you really enjoy them even if you didn't think you would. It wasn't a really warm day (surprise!), but I did manage to roll up the legs of my jeans and run like mad into the freezing cold, late-June water, and then scramble even more madly back to the shore. My feet felt all tingly and clean for the rest of the day. Hard to explain unless you've done it.

Right after we'd returned from Twillingate, we went out to Harbour Grace for the wedding event of the century. Had an even better time than I thought we would, danced a helluva lot, and partied till the late hours. In a respectable way, of course. There's something strange about family gatherings though. There's all of those expectations about how you should act, what you should say, how you should be. And--I don't know why--but I always seem to break all of those rules without even trying. (Okay, sometimes I try, but not always.) Somehow, I end up enjoying it all in spite of myself, mostly by trying not to take any of it too seriously even though most of the people (muggles, I guess you'd call them. Or adults who forget what it's like to be young and irresponsible, in a good way) want you to take it all way too seriously.

I'm glad to be back home, though. Probably heading out again sometime soon, but can't say where or when. It's just one of those summers. I'm mostly just working from home, not paying attention to any kind of schedule, going wherever the wind takes me. Been regimented for too long.

Now if the weather would only turn to summer and stay there for a couple of days....

Hope you're all enjoying a nice break too.

Gerard

Summer So Far Away

So, today is the first day of summer. It’s the kind of day that makes me wonder why I live here. I remember, before I left Nova Scotia to return here a few years ago, it was near the end of a streak of 40 straight days of sunshine and temps in the thirties—that’s EVERY day beginning in early June. And it was still sunny and warm when I left. Even the winters were warmer and sunnier. And we haven’t seen the sunshine in nearly a week now. A couple of weekends were really nice—just the way summer should be—but you can never take that kind of weather for granted here.

I mean, I do appreciate where we live. Whenever I grouse about the crappy rain, drizzle, fog, and cold some optimistic soul always points out that it could be worse—we could be getting the massive hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, smog alerts, and brush fires like they get in those places with warm weather. Yes, they’re right, although sometimes I’m not so sure that we won’t be getting those things in the next decade or so. But for now, I concede that our weather isn’t that extreme, and that’s something I truly am grateful for.

My wife and I lived in British Columbia about nine years or so ago, though not for very long. We were enticed out there by well-meaning relatives who kept telling us how mild the winters were. Well, on the fifteenth of November that year, we were moving to a new apartment…and it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. 100 centimetres! And I didn’t own snow boots or wool socks. Most snow they’d seen in decades apparently. Then a week later: another 100 centimetres, and twice more around Christmas time their were massive snow storms. They had to close roads and call in the army to get the highways and byways cleared. It took weeks.

I recall one day in late February waking up one morning and seeing the sun shining in through the kitchen window and realizing: it’s the first time I’ve seen the sun since mid-October of the previous year! That’s a mighty long time without even a glimpse of the sun. It had rained continuously whenever it wasn’t snowing, with only a few cloudy, rainless days in between.

The best weather in B.C., besides the hot, muggy weather of August and September (which I absolutely love and wish we could import) was the lightning storms. They were just spectacular. We lived in the Fraser Valley, in a third-floor apartment, so you could not only hear the thunder roaring and rolling from mountain to mountain, but you could also watch the chain lightning get caught in this bowl of rock, just zinging back and forth, lighting up the sky and everything beneath it. I recall standing out on the balcony, overlooking the downtown, the rain pouring down in sheets, and the thunder and lightning like nothing I’d ever seen before. Just incredible. Almost as great as the total lunar eclipse on the night of the full moon in October. Almost as spectacular as the Fundy tides of Nova Scotia that roll in so fast it can take your breath away or the harvest moon setting over the apple orchards in the Annapolis Valley, the sky painted orange, black, and red, like something out of an Old Testament movie.

I guess, when I think of it, it’s the sameness of the weather here that I love and hate at the same time. I like difference, have never been fond of stagnation. But we have entire weeks of RDF. Granted, I wasn’t fond of the constant threat of earthquakes in B.C., and in Ontario, there was the occasional tornado (one took off the top of a church) and drive-by shootings a few miles away (which, in a strange way, is weather-related because most of the real wackos like warm weather).

Weather like this—on the first official day of summer—always makes me wonder if we should be on the move again, to somewhere warmer. But then I think of all the times when we were living elsewhere, and I would have given anything for a whiff of salt air or a glance of Cabot Tower or the Atlantic Ocean. That’s usually enough to make me appreciate being back here. I think of all the people who wish they could be here, but have little choice but to go away to find work. Then I think, a little cold weather is not so bad, even in June.

And pretty soon, it really will be summer. Any day now. Yup. Any day now.

GC

The Sound of Singing!

It’s the anniversary of the day I was born, a.k.a my birthday. I’m not overly fond of this day, for some reason. I was going to go on a long diatribe about the (in) significance of birthdays, but instead I wanted to talk about music. (Oh, and it's not that I hate birthdays or celebrating or aging or any of that. I guess I just don't like the expectations that go along with being the centre of attention in that way. Also born on this day: Mark Wahlberg, Cam Neely, Bjorn Borg, and Joe Clarke. What a strange collection of Geminis). For the record, on this day in 2007, I am aghast at the state of the world: Paris is in jail, Lindsay and Britney are in rehab, Anna Nicole is dead, and Canada is nixing on its Kyoto commitments. New Orleans is sinking, and the dollar is rising through the roof. Seven signs that the apocalypse is nigh?)

Anyway, one of my many hobbies, pastimes, interests, wastes of time, ways of fooling around, or whatever you want to call it is downloading music from iTunes. I don’t pirate music (except when someone generously gives me a CD mix or something like that) because, as a writer, artist, and former musician myself—who knows other writers, artists, and musicians—I understand what it means to value the work that someone does. Sometimes, the best way to show that you value someone’s music (or book or whatever) is to pay for it. I know—not very utopian of me. I always thought I was a socialist at heart, but I don’t think that everything should be free. I just think that stealing is wrong, period.

Anyway, enough preaching (I’m just not in the mood today)—just thought I’d throw a few of my latest favorite downloads at you, just for fun:

1. “Working Class Hero”—Green Day. It’s a remake of a John Lennon song from the seventies, but I love what they do to it. Billie Jo Armstrong’s voice is perfect for this song. It gives me chills every time I hear it. He’s so righteous and angry in a way that you rarely heard in such a melodic, poetic way. Most of the anger and self-righteousness you hear on radio these days lacks melody and/or poetry. Hip-hop bores me to death. Metal has no melody. Mostly just primal screaming, which is therapeutic for some, I suppose. Just not me. I like my songs to sound like songs and singing to sound like singing.

2 . Lucy Kaplansky. Who???? Am I the only person who’s never heard of this person. I was at Starbucks one day and they were playing this version of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe” (also once covered by Johnny Cash), and the voice is just this beautiful, haunting, expressive female. I went home and searched iTunes for who’s done a cover of that song recently and came up with Lucy Kaplansky. Turned out to be the same one. I liked it so much a downloaded a couple more of her songs. She’s richly talented. I might buy more. (FOLKIE WARNING: I am a huge fan of the female voice, as opposed to the male voice. Especially just a girl and a guitar. Or a piano. Or a banjo. Okay, just kidding about the banjo.) (Oh, unless it’s those Dixie Chicks—love ‘em.)

3. “Top of the World” by the Dixie Chicks and “Not Ready to Make Nice” by the Chicks. They play their own instruments extremely well, and they write articulate, poignant, catchy songs. What’s not to love? Oh, and they hate George W. Bush! I mean, how perfect is that? "Top of the World" is one of my favorite songs of the past three years, just as Lucy Kaplansky is my new favorite singer for the next three weeks.

4. “Space Oddity” by David Bowie. One of my favorite songs of all time. It’s just downright spooky…to me, anyway. How did I get by without having this song in my collection all these years? That’s what iTunes is for.

5. “Tom Sawyer” by Rush. Deadly song. Fantastic lyrics. Possibly their best melody. I was never what you call a huge Rush fan, but when I was writing my short story “Exit the Warrior,” the main character turns on the radio and this song was on. So I had to go listen to the song, and that’s where the title of the story comes from. This is a great song for running, working out, or just listening to. It's just pure rock, with a bit of a roll.

That’s only four out of the two or three hundred songs I’ve got on my mp3 player at the moment. I plan to download a few more over the weekend, and I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Oh, and they’re not necessarily recommendations. It depends on what you like. But it might give you some idea where my head is at. Scary thought.

Have a great day even if you didn’t have a birthday.

GC

Awards and all that Jazz

I’m not going to pretend that awards don’t mean anything. I''mpretty sure that they do. But I think it’s worth looking into what they really mean.

Saturday night, I picked up a literary award at the 55th annual provincial arts and letters awards gala in the short fiction category, for my short story, “Exit the Warrior”(excerpt at http://www.tcr.gov.nl.ca/artsandletters/winning_entries.htm). Every year, I make it a point to enter this competition for several reasons. One is that it’s probably the most prestigious literary award in the province. Without exception, every major author from Newfoundland has won several of these awards for fiction and/or poetry: Kenneth Harvey, Lisa Moore, Wayne Johnston, Michael Crummey, Tom Dawe, Kevin Major…and the list goes on and on. It seems that if you want to be taken seriously—better yet if want to take YOURSELF seriously—as a writer in this province, you’ve got to prove you can make it in the arts and letters competition first. It’s a real proving ground, it seems.

And it’s true. The competition is fierce, simply because the prize money is incredibly good ($1,000) and therefore all of the best writers in the province, or most of them at least, enter the fray. I’m sure that some of them don’t (not every year anyway), but sooner or later they all do if they still live here. So you get a chance to judge yourself alongside some of these heavyweight authors. I’ve won four of these in the past seven years, including the big award, the Percy Janes First Novel Award (for an unpublished manuscript) and every time I try and put it in perspective: what does it really mean? Does it do anything for you to win awards like this?

They are prestigious, without doubt. They can make you feel good, definitely. It’s nice to be seen and nice to win some money, and nice to prove to yourself that you’ve got what it takes. As I said, I test myself every year: in January or early February, I challenge myself to write a new short story. That’s it. That’s the challenge. Just knowing that I have a deadline to meet and that what I write has to be good or it won’t make the cut gives me the incentive to just write something. That, as I’ve said before, is most of the battle won when it comes to successful writing.

When a story actually wins, though, that’s a whole different story, so to speak. Each of these new stories, especially the ones that have won awards, are part of the ongoing short story collection I’m writing, and just the fact that they’ve done so well already gives me confidence that they’re good. You need that if you’re going to approach a publisher with a proposal.

Anyway, my favorite part of the awards gala, believe it or not, is NOT picking up the award and shaking hands with the minister of tourism and culture (although he seems to be a nice guy). No, my favorite part has to do with the other people involved, especially the young ones. As soon as I learned two weeks ago that I was invited to the awards ceremony (which means you’ve won an award), my second thought—right after, COOL! I won—was that I was going to be in the privileged position of sitting in on one of the best nights of entertainment around. In the junior category, there are young people from all over the province, including as far away as St. Anthony and Labrador, who came all the way to St. John’s for this night. And many of them read from their winning entries or played winning musical compositions. And their talent is staggering. With many of the writers, I found myself thinking that there is no way that I could write that well at the age of thirteen. Forget it. And the musical performers were amazing. I was just enthralled for the entire two hours. As I said to my wife, who was with me, when you look around at all the talent, you can’t help but feel that you’re in the presence of greatness, in the sense that there is so much ability and it is so special and makes you feel so good about the people you’re with and the place you come from. As far as I know, this competition is unique in Canadian arts, and it’s one of the few things that J.R. Smallwood did right.

It was a great evening also to get the chance to see and talk to some people in the arts community that I either know or don’t know and rarely get a chance to see. It can really make you feel, as a writer, that you belong. And that’s all a part of actually belonging.

There’s other news about my writing, but I’ll share that next time. I’m tired of talking about myself—a topic I grow weary of pretty quickly.

Oh, and what do awards mean? It means you’re doing something right. Now it’s time to go back to work. That’s what it means. Because, in the end, it’s still about the work itself—the writing and the privilege of being able to do that and, occasionally, if you’re lucky, you get told that what you’re doing is worth something.

G

Summer?!

It's finally here! What a glorious few days we've had. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I've got a song in my heart, metaphorically speaking of course. I've even managed to get out jogging these past couple of days. I'm not one of those cold-weather joggers that you see all bundled up, with their steel-belted running shoes, toques, and snow suits, trekking along Elizabeth Avenue in the freezing wind and below-zero temps. Forget it.

I love running. I always have, really. Since my late teens, I've loved stepping into my shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes and hitting the pavement...although in recent years, I prefer the soft ground. It's just easier on the joints. Not as much chance of shin splints. I even met my wife at the end of a long jog up the afore-mentioned Elizabeth Avenue. It was a sunny, warm evening in early September, a lot of years ago, and I got a call from my best friend, asking what I was up to. A friend of his was in town, and since I was getting ready to go running, I ran the six miles or so to his place and met this beautiful young girl of eighteen who stole my heart. I was nineteen at the time, so it was legit. We spent the whole night talking and four years later, we were were married.

There's something about running that I've always loved. It's the fast movement. Pushing the body to go for as long and (sometimes) as fast as it will go. But it's more than the exercise. I've never been crazy about exercise for it's own sake. But I find that running is meditative. It's almost like a trance. Nowadays, I carry my mp3 player and listen to my special "Running Man" folder, with all kinds of cool songs on it. But when I reach a stretch of the path that runs alongside a pond and is sheltered in trees, with hardly a breath of wind, I switch of the music and listen to the sounds of nature. It seems sacrilegious to do otherwise. I meet a lot of the same people on my journey, so it's become somewhat of a community--lots of friendly faces, smiling and waving. But there's lots of entertaining stuff to see too. Occasionally, I get a squirrel crossing my path. Lots of bright colored birds swoop down right in front of me. Yesterday I saw two beautiful, speeding finches. They tend to fly ahead just a bit and stop, wait for me to catch up (or so it seems) and then they fly off again. One time last year, there was this great big monarch butterfly that stopped in the path in front of me. When I stopped and bent down, holding out my hand, the butterfly flew right into my palm and stayed there for a couple of minutes. Those kinds of things are part of what I love my about jogging. It's the outdoors, the adrenaline rush, the exercise of course, the people, and the staying in shape after a horribly long winter.

As I said, I can't run in cold weather. I won't. So I've been waiting...and waiting. I've gotten out a few times this spring, but there's nothing like that first time I can shed the track pants and sweat shirt and just go in shorts and t-shirt. It's like a rush of freedom.

So I went out yesterday and today, and just loved it. In between working on my novel, of course. The end isn't in sight yet, but it's getting there. The running actually helps clear my brain. Sometimes, I think up plot points and ideas for characters while I'm out there.

Any other runners out there? I'd love to hear from you!

Gerard

Over the years

Spiders, Apes, and Me

I saw Spidey 3 over the weekend and mostly I enjoyed it. The usual stuff was there: Tobey and Kirsten, lots of leaping and swinging (all good, clean fun), thrills, chills, and spills. The special FX are awesome, as usual, though I’ve heard some hard-to-please critics say that there’s nothing new—which is a real problem for me, I have to say. Why must there always be something new? I mean, sure, it would be nice, but it doesn’t seem like a valid criticism to me to say that this movie pushes boundaries, visually, that other movies don’t even dare attempt, but it doesn’t outdo itself. It’s like saying Wayne Gretzky scored 80 goals one year, but, like, he didn’t score any on his back or while flying through the air and knitting an afghan. Good is good. If you feel like you’ve seen it before then, well, geez, buddy: it’s Spiderman THREE! Did you not read the movie poster? It’s a sequel. Read: more of the same.

Anyway, was the movie any good? I’d give it a 77 (those of you who know my grading system will appreciate what that means—it’s not good enough for an A, but it’s still really enjoyable). It is a bit long. There were several fight scenes that just seemed repetitive and pointless and could have been shaved by a minute or so each. I liked all of the characters, but there were just too many conflicts going on at once. If they had removed the one with the Sand Dude, then the movie would have been tidier and probably gotten better reviews. They just went for too much, possibly for fear that there wouldn’t be a fourth movie. There could be another Spiderman movie, and I would definitely go to it. But given the cool reception from critics on this one, it’s unlikely Sam Raimi will want to climb back up on that particular horse for a while, if ever. I’d definitely recommend seeing this one, though, if you’re near a theater. Big screen is always better for any almost any kind of movie. You know what they say: go big or go home. The do say that, don’t they? Whoever “they is”.

Speaking of monkeys (I’m sure someone was), I read on the weekend that Austrian activists are seeking human rights for chimpanzees. That’s hilarious. First of all, they must already have the right to vote. Otherwise, how would George Dubya Bush be elected president? TWICE! Or what hope would Stephen Harper have for a majority government in the next election. Giving monkeys the right to vote is the obvious way to go if you’re a right-wing politician. It’s guaranteed votes. That is, until the monkeys are given the right to an education, which only makes sense. What good are rights unless you’re educated on what those rights are and how they should be used. Once monkeys learn to read and think for themselves, the Republicans and Conservatives might find themselves out of luck once again.

How much time do these activists have on their hands anyway? Not only in Austria, but in Brazil, and several other countries are considering this as well. I understand that they don’t want to elevate chimps to the status of people (at least not most people). They say that they just want to make sure the apes are free from torture and killing, or whatever else science does with them.

I mean, realistically, when you look at them, don’t they look like little people? Those big eyes that look like they’ve seen too much, like they could be your best friend if only you’d give them a chance. Of course, they can’t talk and, as far as we know, they can’t read or think or figure out a Rubik’s Cube. Granted, I have days when I can’t do any of those things either. I’m sure we all do.

While we’re at it, I think we should grant monkeys the right to legal abortion. We should also give them fishing licenses and the right to bear arms. They have the right to defend themselves too. In fact, if this goes through, it might eventually come down to human rights versus chimpanzee rights: if a person hurts a chimp, how will the person be punished? A fight to death, maybe. Or a bake-off. Or maybe a challenge to a banana-eating contest.

But wait a minute: don’t we already have animal rights? Can’t people already be prosecuted for animal cruelty? I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that the Western World already protects critters as much as possible.

Giving them rights under the law just seems to be taking things a bit far. But that’s just my opinion. I’m sure Amnesty International will shift its focus accordingly. Leave people to fend for themselves: we’ve got chimps who are misunderstood, seals who barely have a say, and mosquitoes who are facing genocide at an alarming rate in many so-called civilized countries. Who speaks for the humble mosquito?

It’s not that I condone cruelty to animals. I don’t. I love animals, especially furry ones that don’t look at you as if you were food. And I do think we need laws to protect them. But to extend “human rights” to that which is clearly not human seems nonsensical. We are the only species which has the ability to effectively legislate itself right out of existence. Why? Because we are the only species with the ability to understand the difference. If you change a monkey’s rights, it doesn’t know and doesn’t care. If you change the definition of a human, then we all know and feel it. It would seriously damage our sense of identity and distinction. Are the animals progressing at our expense? Are we progressing so that we embrace all as one? Or are we too smart for our own good?

It’s enough to make you feel like an endangered species some days.

Gerard

Spiderman, Spiderman...

Does whatever a hmm-hmm can. I can't use any more of the lyrics than that without the expressed written permission of the songwriter or his/her agency.

But I'm going to see the movie tomorrow and I'm completely stoked for it. I've watched the first two in the series again lately in preparation. Not that I'm a complete spidey-geek or anything. I've never owned the spidey leotards or tried to climb walls (lately). I haven't worked for a newspaper (more than once) and I don't go around quoting lines from the movie (mostly because there aren't any memorable ones).

I just love a good popcorn movie, that's all, and I'm a huge fan of both Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. Plus, it's the first big blockbuster movie of the summer season, and that helps me daydream about warm weather and lazy days. I'm also looking forward to Shrek The Third and Pirates III, as I think most people are. Shrek is just funny as hell, and even though Pirates II was a bit of a mess, I still enjoyed watching Johnny Depp be Captain Jack Sparrow and watching Keira Knightley just be, well, Keira Knightley. She does it so well, and she's a fine actress too.

But there's more than that to look forward to (or maybe I just love the movies way too much). There's The Bourne Ultimatum, which I'm sure I'll have to rent again in December just so I'm not left confused forever about the plot. Ocean's Thirteen (yawn). No Julia Roberts or Catherine Zeta-Jones. But I'll go anyway because Clooney and Pitt crack me up. Die Hard IV (there might be terrorists! Ya think?). I'd also like to see that quirkey "Waitress" movie with the actress from Felicity. Can't remember her name. But it looks interesting. I'm just lookin' to be entertained. Nothing too deep for the summer months. My brain's on vacation.

I admit I'm a sucker for the big Hollywood motion picture, more so than the smaller, edgier independent films. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe I'm just shallow. Or maybe I just like a story with a beginning, middle, and (preferably a good) ending. Criticizing Hollywood is fashionable, of course, and it's certainly not politically correct to admit that you actually enjoy anything that comes out of there. But for every dreckish movie that comes out of that process, there's the occasional gem. You've just got to take the bad with the good, that's all. Or at least, that's what I choose to do.

So my seat is reserved for the summer, and I'll let you know what I think (without giving spoilers though--I hate those), for what it's worth.

Great, now I've got that song going through my head. Brain worm.

Gerard

Blue Moon

It's been a week of steady writing and the occasional foray out into the world, but really not much else to report lately. My novel, Darwin Day, is coming along nicely. It's at 138 pages now, or something like that. Once a novel gets past the 100-page mark, then I feel like it's finally, definitely going to get finished. The characters finally feel real to me now, as if they were real people, just waiting to tell me their story as it happened. I don't like to manipulate my characters by making them do things that I would like them to do. The story will feel more organic and less contrived if I just let them do the talking and the thinking while I just do the typing. Any time I've done it the other way around, it just ends badly. I've tried that with short stories and with some novels I've never finished, and those stories never quite seem genuine or successful to me. They never publish either, not surprisingly.

But I do have a good feeling about Darwin Day. It's about a young man who returns to his hometown for a summer weekend festival and winds up dead. Mostly, it's the story of his girlfriend, Bridget, and his friend and mentor, an old man named Francis Minnow--both of them have seen his ghost, but aren't sure what to do about it, especially since the town is filled with possible suspects, including both the dead boy's father and best friend. Death makes for strange bedfellows, you might say, because nothing will bring people closer together than the death of someone they both loved. But nothing will drive a small town apart more than a suspicious death.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. It'll be fun and funny, but serious and poignant at various times. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl.

But first I have to finish it, which is why I haven't been blogging much lately. I'll try to do better in that regard in the coming days, though.

At least the weather's getting warmer. I think it was seven degrees today. Wind chill factor of minus four.

I love summer in Newfoundland. Oh, and not only is there a full moon tonight, but another one at the end of the month, making that later one a blue moon. So if you're going to do something special that you rarely get the chance to do, that would be the day to do it, just so you can say to someone, "Geez, I only do this once in a blue moon." Or not.

Gerard

Putting the “Mental” Back in “Environmental”

I hope she was kidding. But it’s really hard to tell. So if it’s a joke, it’s not really funny because we can’t tell whether she’s kidding or just demented. Like most people, I’d like to think Sheryl Crow is pulling our collective legs when she says we should reduce toilet paper use down to one square per visit to the [insert euphemism here].

One square? Talk about minimalism. Even the folks on “Lost” probably use more than that on their deserted island. Granted, that’s fiction. I mean big Hurley hasn’t lost any weight yet either and they’ve been on that island for months. On the other hand, if island living made you thinner I wouldn’t have to go jogging tomorrow and I’d probably eat every food that was bad for me for every meal.

When I was growing up (as I’ve said before, I’m a Recovering Catholic), we gave up certain things for Lent. You know, things we really enjoyed, like television, candy, chocolate bars, teasing our younger sister, or giving the babysitter a hard time. Besides, it hardly ever lasted anyway. And rightfully so. Giving things up is an exercise in self-control that might be put to better use by just trying to be a better person or volunteering in the community or something like that.

Still, maybe self-denial is good for the soul. But Sheryl Crow isn’t talking about any forty days and nights in the desert here. She’s saying cut your toilet paper usage back gradually until eventually you are using the very bare minimum…forever. I assume she means for “one” to be the bare minimum, because I don’t think that most of us are ready to live in a world without toilet paper. It would be Communist Russia all over again, where the lineups for toilet paper were longer than those at Motor Vehicle Registration in Mount Pearl (which reminds me: why is the DMV in Mount Pearl and not in St. John’s? Shouldn’t there be one in both cities? And if CBS, Gander, Corner Brook, and Lab City don’t have one, they should be there as well). But I digress.

Sheryl says it’s “a good thing just that we’re all talking” about this issue. By “this issue,” I assume she means the environment and not just toilet paper.

It’s her way to get us thinking about the things we use every day without thinking about how we are destroying the environment, leaving a legacy of devastation behind us for our children, so to speak. Something to think about next time you use the toilet.

I also heard this week that the frequency from cell phones is destroying the ability of honeybees to produce honey, which is not only creating a shortage of honey (no more Honeycombs! Oh, the humanity!) but driving up prices of the honey that’s been made. First oil and gasoline, and now honey. What’s next?

I know, I know: toilet paper. I’m willing to bet there’s going to be a toilet paper tax eventually just like there is on cigarettes—and the more you use, the more you pay. I’m not kidding. So if you’ve got a bad addiction to Cottonelle or that luxurious White Swan stuff, you’re really in for a tough time of it in the Brave New World. I mean, it’s worse than crack (pardon the pun)—you can’t just give up the soft stuff overnight and start buying that cheap budget t.p. that can be used to sand down the walls before plastering. It’s going to take serious time and effort to wean yourself off your current habit.

It just seems to me that we’re being asked to give up everything or cut back on everything. It’s like those medieval monks who were into self-flagellation and self-denial—no sex, no wine, no speaking, nothing pleasurable at all until all you’re left with is the bare minimum.

But I’ll bet they never gave up toilet paper. (Or whatever they used to vanquish their holy crap.)

I’m all for helping out the environment in any way I can. But if this is what it comes to, I’ll voice my opinion in the next election, and if this becomes a political (t)issue, I know exactly what I’ll do.

I’ll vote the bums out.

Gerard

Making the Grade

Good luck to all of you receiving your final grades this afternoon. I hope you get what you deserve, not only in English, but in all courses.

These in-between days are weird. No snow in sight (yet), and I woke this morning to see a blast of sunshine on my bedroom wall around 6:30 a.m.. Then it disappeared and now it looks and feels very much like a gray, dull kind of day is developing.

I have a theory that these are the days when you find out what you’re made of. Anybody can leap out of bed, ready to take on the world on a spectacular, sunny day in July. But it takes true heart to slog through the gray days of April and still feel like you accomplished something worthwhile.

My wife and I watched Spiderman yesterday afternoon because, with the new movie coming out in early May, we thought it would be fun to re-visit and remember what the first instalment in the series was all about. And it was just as good as I remembered, if not better. Spiderman is one of those rare comic-book movies that gives the characters a decidedly dark edge, making the protagonist all-too-human, meaning that he is vulnerable, makes mistakes of judgement and action and even suffers the consequences for it. Spidey hurts the ones he loves even more than he hurts those loathes. Oh, and I couldn’t help but notice the dual personality of The Green Goblin a la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—the mad scientist who creates a secondary, evil creature that he soon finds he is unable to control. Of course, isn’t that what Spiderman is all about?

Funny how all heroes need to wear masks. Most of them anyway. I mean, sure there’s Superman who takes off his glasses, shows off his blue tights, and tousles his hair in a slightly different mode (I can’t tell the difference; can you? Only his hair dresser knows for sure). The wearing of a mask would only take away from his natural good looks, and that’s partly what his character is about. There are others, I guess, who don’t wear masks, but the majority of them do. Batman is a gazillionaire by day, who couldn’t dare to let the world know that he is the caped crusader in tights, a cowl, and a codpiece. I guess I wouldn’t be too eager to share that information either.

And they all have their reasons for being secretive. Partly, it has to do with the necessity of keeping the world at bay so that the superheroes are free to save it in their own way. It would be pretty hard to save the world if the bad guys knew where you lived and all the rest of it.

But I think it also has to do with the idea of the secret lifestyle—the idea that we all have a hidden side of ourselves that’s just waiting to come to the surface. Sometimes that hidden side is better than our “real” selves (the one we present in public); but most times it’s a side that is darker than the face we present to the world. Comic book heroes struggle with such broad, seemingly disparate concepts as “good” and “evil” as if there were no shades of gray. Fair enough. It’s only entertainment, after all.

But most of us in the so-called real world don’t have that luxury of recognizing good or evil in stark, unwavering, clearly identifiable terms. Sure, we know that school shootings, rape, and genocide are acts of evil (though more and more, the g.d. media presents us with the voice and manifesto of the monster and thereby creates literal sympathy for the devil among certain people who are probably bent that way anyway). But it can all get so confusing—you might find yourself recognizing humanity (a cry for understanding, a plea that “society drove me to it”) in the monster’s voice and, even though you know he/she is still a scourge upon society, there is that twinge of doubt in your mind—that part of you that wonders: did I have any part in this? Did the things that I believe in, that society believes in, our intolerance of difference, our pursuit of personal wealth and happiness, and all the rest of it, play some role in the creation of this monster?

The questions are worthwhile, but potentially damaging. They can blind us to formerly stable concepts such as truth, justice, and (cough, cough) the American way. We’re more and more becoming a society that is incapable of meting out justice because we are handcuffed by our own moral quandaries, while the “bad guys” feel free to mete out their own justice without fear of consequence. Sometimes alienation, death, and martyrdom are exactly what they want more than anything; it is often what they are.

Spiderman has similar dilemmas. But he at least tries and is rarely handcuffed, though, like most of us, occasionally finds himself entrapped in a web of his own making.

Days like these (by which I mean every day), we each have the potential to be heroes in our own lives. (I distinguish heroes from superheroes in the same way that I distinguish models from supermodels, sizes from super-sizes, and dupers from super-dupers: the “super” version has powers that are way off the charts and immeasurable in their potential for both good and bad.) I mean, you can wake up in the morning (or whenever you wake up) and you can decide: will I take out the garbage today or let it pile up in the corner until the town officials break down my door and declare me a nuisance to society? Will I be nice to the cashier at Wal-mart who’s just having a hard day or will I be a part of the problem by being nasty right back at her/him?

There are lots of ways to be a hero. And most of us choose that route without even knowing it. I’m always impressed with people who constantly do the right thing, who make themselves get up and go to work every morning and usually manage to keep a genuine smile on their face. There’s a very ordinary kind of heroism involved there. It only takes a school shooting or a daylight robbery, or some idiot setting fire to a warehouse or scribbling grafitti on someone else’s storefront to make us realize that normal isn’t as bland as it appears to be. Normal sometimes takes a lot of courage, especially when we are constantly bombarded with examples of extraordinary evil or just evil in its many shades.

Sometimes, I believe, the most heroic thing you can do is just choosing to be a good person who does your job well and performs your function as a decent human being, friend, and family member to the best of your ability—regardless of the other, myriad possibilities for your life.

Anyway, whatever grade you get today in your various courses, I do truly hope you are able to reconcile yourself with its implications about whether or not you “showed up” and did the work. But only for yourself and not for anyone else. True heroism, I believe, is shown when you are tested and there are no real, obvious consequences for doing good or bad. When you look in the mirror, how do you grade your own performance? That’s more important than any official grade from anyone else.

Regardless, I don't believe the axiom that you're only as good as your last grade. Life carries your average forward. It's an accumulative grade, earned every minute of every day. Academia, however, is not so different. The grade is made, not just at the big, showy final exam (metaphoricaly speaking, as well) or research paper; it's also made on that snowy Friday in early February when you chose whether to show up or not, having read the book or not, with something to say or not. You decided that, and I'm not saying it's either good or bad, no matter what you chose. It's beyond good and evil. It is what it is.

Gerard

Summertime, Summertime, Summertime, Summertime, Summertime, Summertime!

What is UP with this fog, cold, wind, and downright crappy weather. It’s like the sun has left and is never going to come back.

I admit that it’s been affecting my mood this week. Too many gray days in a row can just suck the energy right out of me. I’ve been pecking away at the keyboard every day—just showing up—and am managing to make progress in my novel. It hasn’t been the great week that I had hoped for, but I’ve gotten about 25 new pages or so done so far, and I know I’ll do more tonight and tomorrow. It’s all progress and that’s something to be grateful for. I had to backtrack in my writing this morning because I had a (supposedly) brilliant idea last night as to what I SHOULD write, as opposed to what I DID write. But if I’d never written the first draft, I would never have thought of how to write it differently.

This is not something I normally do. Usually, I like to just keep going until the novel is finished. But this was something that would affect the rest of the story and really highlight one of the big themes that, so far, the novel had been lacking. So now when I start writing again later this morning, I’ll be on the straight and narrow. It’s really beginning to feel like it’s coming together. I can see exactly where it’s going now and how it has to end. More importantly, I’ve written enough fresh material that I now know who the characters are. I’ve had to get re-acquainted with them because it’s been a few months since I spent any time with them.

This is pretty much how my summer will go, I’m sure. I’m still aiming to finish this novel (Darwin Day) by the end of May. Then I’ll revise and finish my other one (Finton Moon, which won the Percy Janes First Novel Award a few years ago), and all will be right with the world. Then they both get sent out to editors and/or agents, hopefully before the end of summer. We’ll see about that, I guess. (I’m hoping that “summer” is one of those words like “Candyman”—if you repeat it enough times, it’ll appear.)

One of these days, maybe I’ll post an excerpt or something, in case anyone’s interested. I’m not usually much for sharing my work before it’s done, but maybe I should do that, since I’ve been talking about it so much.

I’m thinking that exams are pretty much over now. I’m not sure of the exact last date, but I guess the summer break starts for a lot of you this weekend. Granted, summer is not exactly bursting out all over. But there are signs. The snow is mostly gone, all except for a few mountains of it here and there throughout the city. There’s garbage everywhere you look. Most of my favorite t.v. shows are in re-runs, preparing for the last few shows of the season to run in early May. Soon, there’ll be no more NCIS, Lost, or Jericho. And the hockey playoffs are in full swing. Wish they were over. It’s no fun for me to watch unless the Bruins (my team) or Leafs (my wife’s team) are in it, and they just aren’t. But I’m not bitter…

American Idol is almost done, thankfully. The talent just isn’t there this year. There’s nobody with any star power like in past years. I’m quietly rooting for that young Jordin chick because she’s got the whole package (for retail purposes). But at least Mr. Smiley-face Sanjaya is gone. Maybe I’ll watch it every week now until it’s over. He just irked me. When he smiled, it was like his teeth took over his whole face and he looked like one of those those big Yahoo! smiley faces.

It’s not that I care about American Idol, any more than I care about any particular t.v. show. It’s just entertainment. If we lost cable tomorrow, I don’t think I’d be lost© or anything. I’d just find something better to do. Like watching the Blue Jays. And I don’t mean the birds that have returned from down south only to wonder why. Damn instincts. There’s got to be a better way.

Gerard

Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program

It must be springtime—as I was returning home from the Post Office this morning, there was a thin-boned, impeccably-dressed, elderly woman standing at my door as if she knew I would be home at any moment. She’d been just about to knock, pretending she hadn’t seen me coming and didn’t know that I lived behind that door.

“Oh!” She pretended to be shocked that I was standing before her in the flesh. I was afraid she might have a heart attack or something.

“Yes?” I asked, just to assure her I wasn’t a ghost.

“Good morning.” She was about to go into her spiel without taking a breath, just as she’d been trained to do. But I wasn’t having it.

“Yes, it is a good morning. How are—”

“I’m just going around talking to people about yesterday’s tragedy in Virginia. Have you heard about it? These are horrible times we’re living in, aren’t they.” She was shaking her head sorrowfully. “I mean, who knows but the next monster is living right her among us?”

I resisted the urge to say how appalled I was at her gall, the audacity she had to exploit those deaths. “I can assure you that he is.” I smiled winningly.

“Yes.” She smiled, with just a trace of uncertainty in her expression. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right.”

“Can I help you with something? It’s not really a good time for me.”

“When would be a good time?”

“Well, never really. I’m not big on religious discussion.”

“Well, perhaps I can leave you this pamphlet then.”

“I’ve had dozens of those over the years and I’ve never read one. You should save it for someone who can appreciate what you have to say.”

Disappointed (or angry?), she put it back in her purse.

“But you have a good day anyway,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“I wish you well in your day’s work.” I was putting the key in the front door and turning the knob, opening the door as I started to step inside.

“Oh. Yes. Well, thank you.”

And that ended my two minutes today with the lady from the Jehovah’s Witness Protection program. I have nothing against the JWs. I’m sure they’re mostly good (though somewhat misguided), well-intentioned folk who think the majority of us are going to hell on a slow-moving train.

But why do they keep showing up at my door? When I was younger, I actually would stand and listen to them. Back then, they sent good-looking young women to my door. I think they’ve kept up with my aging process through their super-spy software and figure I’d be more likely to talk to an older woman now. Not true. I’m not really likely to talk to any of them. Sometimes, in the past, I would invite them in, offer them a cup of tea, and debate the existence of God with them or discuss whether Jesus would actually like the idea of people going door-to-door and using his name to discuss the ravages of war in the Middle East or the immorality of certain political figures or people “living in sin.”

Now, I just politely say I don’t have time. And still they stand there. And stand there. And smile. And wait for me to miraculously open my heart and mind to their message. Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m too harsh.

But it got me thinking: when does anything good ever come to your door? Think about it. Vacuum salesmen (always men, never women), urchins collecting beer bottles, people looking for money for one debatably good cause or another (some I always give to, others not so much). Or someone might knock on your door to tell you your house is on fire or someone next door has been stabbed and needs you to call 911. Or some longlost, anonymous relative might show up looking for shelter. Or, if you’ve lived a life of promiscuity, some young person might show up calling you “daddy” when you had no idea when you left Buchans seventeen years ago that, well, I digress…. I hope the nice JW lady doesn’t read that last thought tonight when she’s searching me on her super spyware.

All I’m saying is that the cliché is wrong: opportunity, most definitively, NEVER knocks. All good things do NOT come to those who wait. That which comes to my door generally wants something from me.

If I want opportunity I have to go find it. Make it. Hunt it down. Make something of it. Myself. It never comes to me of its own volition. If I want to win the lottery, I’d better buy a ticket. If I want to win Canadian Idol, I’d better audition.

Another way of saying it is that the Lord helps those who help themselves.

I suppose the Jehovah’s people kind of see it that way too. After all, they want recruits or converts; they want to make the numbers strong and, less cynically, I suppose they want to spread The Word. Just because I don’t particularly enjoy their version of The Word doesn’t mean they don’t see me as one big walking opportunity.

But I’m getting a little tired of being put on the defensive, of always having to say “No thank you” to people I don’t even have a relationship with. It all gets a little negative, creating bad karma (if you believe that sort of thing, which I sort of do. Consider karma to be a god. Or God is Karma. Whichever and maybe neither).

I mean, how many times are you just going along, having a great day and minding your own business, and then someone walks up to you, puts their hand on your sleeve and asks “Have you found Jesus?” or “Can you spare fifty bucks for a phone call?” or “Would you please do our survey because, well, you don’t know us, but you do owe us some of your time.” And you’re forced out of your happy place into another, relatively darker place.

The first time is probably not so bad. You might even fish in your pocket for a dollar so that a homeless man can buy a smoke or a sandwich. You might even smile and say “Yes, thank you, I have” to the woman who asks if you’ve found Jesus. (I once said I didn’t know he was missing and I sure hope they do find him because we could sure use him right now. Then I tipped my baseball cap and kept going.) But after the third or fourth or fifth time that day, you might finally blow a gasket. Or you might just find yourself inexplicably in a bit of a down mood, not really knowing why, which of course might carry over into the next discussion you have with some unsuspecting person who’s also had to deal with the fire brigade’s annual ball, the girl scouts’ cookies, and a seniors’ walkathon all in one day. They’re all good causes, but you can’t really say yes to all of them.

Of course saying “yes” puts you in a better mood. So maybe that’s just easier. You’ll be poorer of pocket, but richer of spirit. Assuming you don’t feel like a bit of a pushover.

Anyway, it’s funny what a “chance” encounter at the front door can make you think of. I’ve thought of how the Jehovah’s and I really have had a good, long run together. I feel like they’ve been with me since I left home at the age of eighteen. If only my poor, devout Catholic mother knew what they were trying to get me to believe! She’d certainly pray even harder for my soul, such as it is.

But, as I said, I can no longer harbour any ill will towards the JWs. We’re like the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote—inseparably distant and yet somehow, ironically attached, for better or for worse. “Beep-beep!” I say as they are foiled yet again…for now. But they’ll be back with the next tragedy, as sure as the leaves fall in autumn.

Sometimes, though, an opportunity is not to be missed. And I think that’s why I had to write about this.

Gerard

Today is the first day of the rest of the week.

So today was my first day of living the dream: being a writer. I slept until 7 a.m.—an hour later than during the semester, which is a real treat. Someday I’d like to sleep until noon. I haven’t done that since…well, ever. I’ve never been much of a sleeper. Even in my days of playing with the band(s), I would get home around 3 or 4 in the morning, crawl into bed and be completely unable to sleep. Next thing I knew, it was time for breakfast. Anyway, some habits die hard, I guess, because I’m still that way. I didn't sleep much last night, wound up watching hockey highlights with the sound muted for a couple of hours. But I still get up at the same time; otherwise, I feel I might miss something (besides sleep, I mean).

After breakfast, which takes all of ten or fifteen minutes, I amble to my home office (aka “the den”) where I check e-mails, MSN news, CBC sports page, and anything else that will assure me that the world didn’t end in a massive terrorist attack overnight. Reassured, I decided it was time to start writing. (To be honest, even if Overaged Relatively Normal Ninja Turtles had bombed downtown Tokyo this morning, I probably would have continued with my day. It's just that I like to be informed, even if the world really has gone to hell.)

And it really was time to starting writing. It’s just that someone forgot to tell my brain that. It’s kind of a huge shift to go from being a teacher and academic to suddenly expecting yourself to be Creative Guy. I’m sure some of you know what I mean. In my early undergraduate years I managed to write a few short stories here and there—none of them very good; I’m not even sure I still have them—but it was hard to just turn it on and off like that. That hasn’t changed either.

I find that music helps. I have my mp3 player nearby always, just in case I need inspiration. (I intentionally don’t have an iPod because they don’t have all the features I want/need, such AM/FM radio and a microphone, essentials to me). Every time I work on a new book or story, I have a “soundtrack” that gets me in the mood for that specific story and the characters that inhabit that world. My current project is called Darwin Day (a novel), and I have two separate soundtracks for it—one is instrumental (the words of others get in the way of fresh thinking sometimes) and the other has pop and/or rock songs, some of the era in which the story takes place. It just gets me in the mood to write.

Or think about writing. Really, what I did today while listening to Rush's "Tom Sawyer" was reading over what I had already done several months ago to remind me of where it was going. I don’t get into that nasty habit of revising the first fifty pages over and over so that the story never moves forward. That’s a trap, and if you’re writing a novel or story of your own, I’d suggest you steer clear of it. Just keep going, on word in front of the last one until you reach the end (of the sentence, paragraph, chapter, or novel). Don’t look back until you’re done, and don’t show it to anyone else when you’ve written ten precious pages and ask, “What do you think?”What if they say, “You suck. What made you think you could be a writer?” Where would that leave you? It could traumatize you forever so that you definitely never would be a writer. I mean, you must have REALLY valued that other person’s opinion or you never would have asked. I’m not sure that people who ask other people’s opinions of their writing really want the truth. Besides, whose truth is it? Who has the right to tell you that your work isn’t worth anything? If you believe in it, just finish it. Ask for input from other people then, sure, but if they tell you it’s rotten to the core, don’t give up on it and throw it in the wood chipper. Just keep writing. And even if they say, "It's great!" it wouldn't mean much. It's only ten pages. The average novel far exceeds that much. It's kind of like pouring cement for a foundation and asking a master carpenter, "So what do you think of my new house?"

Anyway, I’m digressing. I was talking about my first day of writing.I read half of those first fifty pages and felt very satisfied with myself. Then I did laundry (as part of the work-sharing agreement between me and my wife in which she still does the majority), went out to meet a friend for lunch for a couple of hours, came home and answered some e-mails, and then had supper. So it’s nearly 8 p.m. and I’m just settling in to do some writing, again.

I know I’ll really start tomorrow. I promised myself that I would write fifty pages this week, which would be a major triumph for me. I can usually write way more than that, but I’m taking it easy on myself, especially considering tomorrow’s Tuesday already, and this is my first full-time writing in a long time.

I’m reminded of that story about James Joyce (I think it was from Stephen King that I read it in his book On Writing). Joyce was a slow writer, picky with his words. One evening a friend met him walking on the road and had the temerity to ask Joyce how his day of writing had gone.

“I wrote five words,” Joyce said with exasperation obvious on his face.

“Five words!” His friend clapped his hands in glee. “That’s wonderful for you, Jim. You must be pleased with your output!”

“I suppose,” said Joyce, rubbing his chin. “But I just don’t know what order they go in.”

That was a paraphrase, of course, but that’s how it feels some days. I can’t imagine only writing five words in a day, let alone fussing so much over which order to put them in. My best advice—and the advice I almost always take myself—is to just put your arse in the chair and write. That’s the best way to write anything. If you’re showing up, you’ll eventually get it done. If you don’t show up, nothing gets done. Kind of like life.

Of course, when you show up, it’s nice if you have something to say too.

Enough throat-clearing. I must go write my five words.

Gerard

A Cool Change

I finished grading all the exams late last night, and this morning, I entered all the grades and submitted my final report to the English Department. That’s it. It’s all done and the winter semester of 2007 is officially over for me.

If I have one of your essays and you would like it back, please e-mail me at gnc@nf.sympatico.ca and we can arrange that. I’ll be on campus for a while Monday and in my office for a while. I likely won’t be in that office once the spring semester begins, so e-mail will be the best way to reach me.

Not surprisingly, I already miss teaching. But I have made a conscious decision to take some “me” time over the next few months. I have that novel to finish, another one (okay, two) that need revision before re-submission to literary agents and editors, as well a few more stories to write for a short story collection, so I’ll be plenty busy over the summer. As much as I love teaching, it is a draining sort of job, and I’m really not much of a martyr. Not a good one anyway. Plus, my wife likes to see me once in a while.

I’ll probably be blogging a little bit about how the whole writing process is working for me as the summer goes on. I hope no one minds that. Leave a comment if you want. In fact, I would love it if you did. It lets me know that someone’s listening. I’ve never been a big fan of one-way communication (or the sound of one hand clapping). It’s part of why, sometimes I think I would love the solitary writer’s life, but at the same time, I crave the constant interaction that’s a part of the teacher’s life. I’ll probably wind up teaching creative writing one of these days for the best of both worlds.

Beyond that, I plan to spend the summer remembering who I am, and who I was before I began the six year trek to a doctoral degree that began in September 2000 and officially ended in October 2006. I’ve always been an artistic soul—I used to play music for a living. I love to write songs. I sing and play guitar. I write some poetry. I have amateur interests in painting and photography. Anything that lets me communicate what’s in my soul, I’m game to try it. I think, really, that’s what a writer is. I don’t think it’s something special that separates you from other people—that would be the Writer, with a capital “D”. Capital “Duh”. I think it just means that you have an innate need to express yourself through words. That’s all. I like writing fiction, so it means I use short stories and novels to get across my ideas about the world, about how things are and even sometimes the way I wish they were.

I’m a fairly optimistic person, in spite of my well-honed sense of cynicism. While I’ve grown to expect the worst, somehow (like Charlie Brown gearing up to kick that old football every fall) I always still hope for the best from the world, from people.

I hope some of you will stick around to hear all about the warped, conflicted view that I have. It’ll be strange making the transition from teacher (one who’s trying to shape minds) to regular blogging-type person who just has something to say. But, according to the latest poll, a lot of you plan to check it out now and then, so that’s pretty encouraging. I’ll try to have something interesting to say. But mostly, I’ll just talk and hope that what comes out says something a little bit profound or befuddling, amusing or bemusing.

Thanks to all of you for an absolutely fantastic semester. I enjoyed (nearly) every minute of it and I’m looking forward to seeing (and hearing from) a lot of you again.

You know, when I started this blog, a lot of people/naysayers (friends, family, colleagues) were skeptical that it would really do any good. They said that either no one would pay attention to it or that they things I said would just be ignored. Well, nearly 2,000 posts later, I beg to differ. I consider this blog a great success for a lot of different reasons.

And I’m hoping that it will somehow be a way for some of us to stay connected to each other in the coming months, maybe even years. Time, as always, will tell the final tale.

Back soon.
Gerard

Voice From the Cave

It’s dark in here. I’ve been grading essays ever since Monday night. Okay, that’s a lie, sort of. By the time I got home Monday evening around 6:30 p.m. with my sleigh full of final exam papers, I was too exhausted to do anything but eat and sit. The grading of essays began in earnest Tuesday morning and that’s where I’ve been at ever since: in the Examination Grading Cave (not to be confused with the Grading Curve, which I never speak of, let alone use. Nasty business.)

I can only imagine how tired y’all must have been. I saw a lot cramped hands (and a few cramped faces too, I admit) and a lot of bleary, red eyes looking up the gymnasium ceiling as if hoping it would rain and the exam would be cancelled.

The exam process for me, as a teacher, is always pretty grueling. Not just physically (I don’t know how waitresses and cashiers do it, standing on their feet all day!), but the worrying, the fear, the hope…and that’s just how I feel for you when you’re writing. I’m always torn between two emotions—there’s the relief that it’s over, that you’re getting to move on to something else, that I’m getting to move on to something else, and there’s also the wistfulness that I feel that it’s over. I watch you all, knowing more or less what most of you have been through in the past four months. I know that some of you have had personal tragedy and difficulty, deaths in families, and sickness for yourself. Some of you even had a hard time just making it to the exam, but I hope you’re glad that you did. I know I am.

Anyway, the grading is going well. I’ll hold off on giving any hints as to how it’s going, except to say that there have been very, very few disappointments so far.

I must get back to work. Just wanted to say hi.

Till next time.

Gerard