all of the lights

kanye and i are having one of our many moments as i write this post. i'm just sayin'.

as i come to the end of the portion of my weekend that belongs to me (sunday belongs to lesson planning and grading and cooking and, hopefully, cleaning), i am sitting in my apartment peering at this screen and wondering if it is finally time to face my fears. there's this essay i've been writing for about 6 months now that continues to torment me because it deals with some of the most vulnerable and truthful things i've ever been able/willing to put down on paper. it's about me and all of the aspects of myself that have made me feel less than. it's the truth.

scary stuff, people. and there's a scary deadline attached- february 18th. in part, my return to this blog was not only for its own sake, but specifically for the sake of this article and the anthology it will (hopefully) eventually belong to- if one exists, maybe the other will too?

so now it's time, with my sierra nevada in my hand, for me to attempt to reconnect to 7-year-old me, and 12-year-old me, and 27-year-old me...and talk about all those things that make me question my intelligence and my sex appeal and my "me"-ness. i'll tell you how it goes.

oh also, i planned this whole food post that exists only on a legal pad in my backpack. i promise to make that happen this week because it has a lot of recipe links that "winter you" wants and needs to make your tummy happy.

this is the end of the innocence

i'm entering my 6th year of teaching (as in, it has already begun). i started my first blog during my first year teaching, which started about 6 years ago. my journey with words written into boxes on my computer screen and shared with the world has had its stops and starts, but i would really like to spend time spinning phrases and ideas into lines in this space as much as possible.

growing up has mellowed me out and made me less interested in sharing myself with the anonymous world out there, and my amped up professional life sucks away my time to immerse myself in good words and ideas, leaving me with less than amazing insights into the things going on in the world.

i could easily tell you the latest about yosmary's helpfulness, or how jericho finally turned in his op-ed, or even about the little work flirtation situation happening with the kindergarten teacher from cali, but all that seems unimportant in the face of tornadoes and a black president who is losing traction and a nation that is waiting for superman to land on our doorstep. none of the minutiae of my and my students' lives seems worth the publicity. and yet, it is that minutiae that is beginning to be all that really matters; my microcosm for seeing the rest of this big bad world of ours.

this is where i am. hear me out.