gloomy gray windowpane

“Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world”- Grace Paley

I recently dusted off my copy of the collected stories of grace paley . she was a pacifist, an anarchist, and an all-around rabble-rouser, whose activism grew more energized with age. Ive only read the first few stories, but already I am amazed by how she could craft a bizarre and intriguing tale out of a dirty dish rag, or an old woman's memories of youth. she was a master of developing a plot around the lassitudes of habit and domestication. Yet the gloom and doom of every story has an element of magical realism. In one of the stories, a divorced couple have a peculiar encounter in the ex-wife's new apartment, in which she is revealed as a two-timer and he is revealed as a misanthrope obsessed with his biceps. When they depart from their meeting, he cartwheels down the street, into the sunshine.

bizarre! i love it!

speaking of bizarre, im not sure what is strangest about this story from sports illustrated ... the fact that an Oklahoma football fan tried to castrate a Texas football fan, or the fact that both of them had their respective team fight songs "programmed" into their car horns. i need to save this story for one of my future short stories. too weird to make up!

yoga was a disappointment today, but my turkey and avodaco sandwich at sweetish hill was not.

p.s. who let peter gabriel into the ACL fest?

no, i will not water my buffalo grass!

so today i learned that my dream of indoctrinating young minds is still yet a distant dream. apparently i need to take about FIVE more english classes in order to be certified to teach at the high school level. im stressed out now because i was planning to begin student teaching in january. now i will have to take all these classes. on the upside, i will be able to take english classes which is something i love. then again, i will be unemployed while i do this, which is something i dont love. well maybe that is a lie. last time i was unemployed all i did was watch king of the hill and drink cheap wine at noon. it was the best four months of my life.

speaking of teaching aspirations, my friend sent me this from mad tv:



Me and SuperDork -- in our neverending quest to one day own a house large enough so we dont have to store our cereal on top of our dryer -- visited the new mueller development in east austin. it will be a little slice of suburbia in central austin, with much lower prices per square foot than the hyde park and rosedale bungalows we love. the salespeople were a little creepy though. they thought we might jump at the opportunity to own a house with a view of "the parade of homes"! not sure what that is exactly, but it seems a bit peacocky to me. mueller is supposed to follow a "new urbanist" concept, which emphasizes walkability, high density, and residential mixed with retail. i just cant figure out how mueller's new chair king store fits into the progressive development scheme. then, i read this in the austin chronicle, which squashed my dreams of sitting out on my unwatered front lawn in my antiwar t-shirt and rainbow shorts:

Another concern recently raised by some potential home buyers is the need to revisit the restrictive homeowner association covenants that will govern residents. Austinite Tiffany Hamburger sees "freedom of expression" problems with the 134-page Mueller Master Community Covenant, an appendix to the Master Development Agreement that uses boilerplate language taken from suburban models. "How will these [restrictive covenants] be reconciled with the 'Keep Austin Weird' ethos?" echoes Prentiss Riddle, a potential Mueller homeowner. He notes that in other HOAs, covenants have been interpreted to forbid yard art, wildflowers, unwatered buffalo grass in August, unmarried or gay couples, anti-war signs, and rainbow flags.

not sure if i want to live in this society of home parades and plentiful chairs, where i have to water my buffalo grass and may not be able to raise a water buffalo (as fresh-mozzarella enthusiasts do). i would much rather live here and be within walking distance to maria's kitchen .

domesticated despair

"At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily." - Flannery O'Connor

much has happened in the last few days. most notably, i finally visited the zoo down the street from our house...also known by some as the local high school. i was actually enchanted by its zoo-ness. restless teenagers roaming, communicating with eachother with rumbling noises, meerkat calls, and bee dances. (communication rituals that proceed feeding time at the cafeteria, it seems). at lunch, they nibble doritos from eachothers' hair and drink Cherry Coke by the gallon.

the school i visited is HUGE-- something like 4,000 students. the campus is a tangle of hallways and for awhile i thought i would never escape the theater department. all in all, the kids were charming, loud, and quirky as all kids are. the teachers on the other hand:

DEPRESSED!

wide-eyed, hair-on-ends, shirts untucked, their Keds worn down to the soles.

these are all first impressions, of course. the experience at least reconfirmed my desire to teach, to get away from the stare-at-my-computer-for-8-hours-a-day lifestyle. such despair! or as Flannery O'Connor put it, a despair that has been domesticated and made happy. well, for me the daily grind really isnt so bad. but to be in a classroom seems so much more.... interesting (even if i find myself wearing Keds).

in other news, i had class last night. we had a discussion about bibles and military recruiters in schools. everyone agreed that neither should be allowed. we also discussed the new "mandatory moment of silence" required after saying the pledge in a texas classroom. strange law to be coming from our very LOUD, and very tightly-wound texas legislature.

not sure how ill survive this semester. by december i have to...

for school:
-complete a final project
-finish 25 hours of observation
-prepare for student teaching
-pass competency exams for my subject(s)

for work:
-co-write a book chapter with my boss
-organize events to be held in different texas cities
-pull off another fundraiser

plus i still must find time to rest and watch my netflix, of course! SuperDork and i watched the gospel of judas last night-- extremely interesting. judas, the "villain", has been redeemed! i love when that happens.