Bound and determined.

I have a problem. I cannot stop buying books.

Once after acknowledging our similarly overflowing bookshelves, Niaz and I half formed a pact in which we vowed to allow ourselves to buy only one new book after reading three already-purchased ones. That sounded nice, didn't it? A good way not only to get through my ever-lengthening reading list, but also to give my bank account a break. I don't know about him, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he too surrendered like I did to the siren song of bookstores. I think I read one whole book before going to Barnes & Noble and buying enough books to make my 10%-off Member Card worth the membership fee.

I have never been good with resolutions – New Year's or otherwise – and it's becoming increasingly apparent that I might have an addictive personality. This probably explains the almost-one-hundred dollars I dropped at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green on Saturday. While unpacking from the weekend last night, I somewhat proudly and somewhat ashamedly added seven or eight freshly-bound books to my collection, dividing them up among the large bookcase, the small unofficial YA shelf, and the stool-turned-nightstand beside my bed. I stepped back, surveyed the situation, and one thing was abundantly clear: It's time to rededicate myself to the not-a-resolution I considered back in February.

I refused to make it public then because I'm fairly convinced that telling other people about my goals has approximately the same effect on my progress as high school sweethearts professing their love to one another via a yearbook ad has on their relationship's longevity. The endeavor is doomed before the intentions are even published.

So I knowingly enter into this with great trepidation, but here it is: My goal is to read one book a week. To an average reading adult, this seems doable, but in the two months since I half-heartedly began, I've finished three books. (Time to buy more?! Okay, so I've already taken care of that. Plus, I've decided not to impose a book-buying embargo on myself because I learned long ago that I'm too smart – er, weak – to fall for my own fictitious rules and deadlines.) I can blame in on the lifestyle of being a new teacher, but let's face reality. The height of the book-stacks has reached mountainous, and intervention is critical.

I'm bound and determined to scale this constantly growing mountain. And I'm taking you with me.

Birdwing by Rafe Martin

I have a feeling that even if the plot of this fairy tale had been disappointing, I would have still loved it despite itself. Luckily, the coming-of-age adventure of Prince Ardwin did not disappoint. I had not expected that a winged boy would become the one character in all of literature with whom I most identify.

This is one of the many books that I've purchased because of its attractive cover, even though I later learned that the artist's rendering of the protagonist, the one-armed-one-winged Ardwin, is inaccurate. (No, the wing is on his other left, I'd say.) I picked it up at the Scholastic Book Fair that the book club sponsored in the library at school. I mean, I had to buy books to support the student organization, right?

Not surprisingly, though, the book landed on my bookshelf unread until a month or so later when Victoria asked me for reading recommendations and I, despite having read the book, suggested it. She and I once had a tryst with the Brothers Grimm, and this story reimagines and expands the Grimm's tale "The Six Swans". Seemed like a match. She took it, read it, loved it, and foisted it back at me so that I could read and love it, too. Done and done.

Rafe Martin's writing style drew me in immediately, and I suspect it would carry me through an even poorly spun yarn. The tale is written in prose, but it is nothing short of lyrical. Martin is fond of alliterative and original adjective pairs, prepositional possession, intriguing names, and weighty nouns and verbs. His characterization is vivid and his setting is timeless in the way that the realms of the best legends are. The cast line-up is full of archetypes (orphans, evil step-mothers, and wizened wizards), but Martin develops them into a unique humanity despite their otherworldliness. The themes of love, loss, betrayal, and belonging are worked out with heartbreaking and redemptive reality.

Birdwing's narrator is omniscient, which explains my frustration with the thought processes and choices of Ardwin, the young hero. The reader is far more enlightened about reality and its consequences than he, so the attempt at dramatic irony sometimes fails because the plot twists are apparent to the reader long before the twists occur. This makes Ardwin seem very naïve, but this may just be part of the tale's theme. This youthful naivety juxtaposes nicely with the young man at the end of the novel.

I would have loved this book no matter what because I am a sucker for a nicely turned phrase, but Birdwing is more than a pretty book. It is a journey that takes us – Ardwin and the reader – fearfully into our insecurities and brings us victoriously out of ourselves.

Coming Soon! Bound and Determined: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Check it out here.

Decision-making and the art of lawncare.

Last weekend, after a week at school that made me actually love my job, I decided that it was time to start looking for a place closer to school. After all, if I'm going to be keeping my teaching post for at least two years, I should be looking for a more reasonable dwelling with a commute time of fewer than 45 minutes each way. Thusly began the hunt.

It was frustrating -- not because I wasn't coming up with any information. I was. My word-of-mouth and school-wide email inquiries were turning up results faster than I could sort through them. But I was frustrated because this week had me chained to my desk until well after dark, long after the hour it is advisable to track down uncharted rental property. Plus, I was just too tired to do the sifting.

Thank goodness for this week. No, it didn't make me love my job quite as well as last week did, but it did give me some time to think. I still haven't followed up on any of those leads. Freeish-time is only now peeking around the corner. Who knows? Maybe I'll go apartment hunting. Maybe I won't. Yes, being closer to school would be nice, but maybe I'm just conning myself with all those glittering pros on my pro-con list. With gas prices going down and with home getting more homey by the minute, I'm not sure if sleeping with a shotgun beside my bed is really what I want right now.

Here's what I've decided:

The grass is no greener anywhere else than it is where I stand at any given moment. I should tend it and cultivate it. I should water it and be grateful for it. I should choose to see the tender shoots of green beside my feet, instead of tromping them down. And if anyone else's lawn looks more lush and velvety green than my own, it is because that person chose to make it that way, and if that same lawn doesn't stay that way after the previous owner leaves and I set up camp, it is because that person took his or her attitude with him or her, I've brought mine along, and it's the same attitude that kept my little patch of grass brown and brittle before. And I can't forget that every place goes through seasons. Nowhere -- short of Narnia -- is grass really perpetually green. But it is almost always certain to come back if I wait long enough.

If I live here or if I live there, life is life. Good or bad. I can choose to run, or I can choose to change myself. Running seems easier, but it's only temporary.

On Friday, Holly treated Elizabeth, Rachel, and me to McDonald's lunch. It was the one semi-calm moment in the wedding-day whirlwind, even if Holly rushed to paint her own fingernails as soon as she finished her southern chicken sandwich. While Holly did that, Elizabeth and I decided to brave the newly-formed lunch crowd at the counter to get desserts. While we stood there in line and debated whether or not we should ask the lady at the cash register for "vanilla thrillas" instead of "ice cream cones" (Elizabeth ultimately did, though the cashier was not amused.), I felt became aware of a feeling in my stomach.

It was one of those feelings that is neither fully physiological nor fully psychological. I vaguely recognized it, but I couldn't quite place it. It was sort of an emptiness despite having had eaten. Then I had a flashback, similar to the mental connection between an aroma and a place or between a song and a season. For a split second, I wasn't twenty four years old or standing in line with Elizabeth at the McDonald's on Washington and Green: I was seven, and I was alone, lying in the bed that my sister and I shared until the day that she got married. And I had that feeling in my stomach -- or in my heart.

Who knew that I'd have the same reaction to my best friend getting married that I had to my sister getting married? It struck me as sort of odd, mostly because I'm seventeen years older than I was when Sissy married. You'd think my emotions would have matured a bit.

But really, it makes sense. Why wouldn't I feel the same way? I mean, I'm still not sure what the feeling means. I believe that it is one of those amoral things that is -- at the risk of being redundant -- neither good nor bad. But whatever it is, I'm glad that my heart knows what's going on even if, in the whirlwind, I don't.

I'm happy for you, C. B.

How much stuff does it take to make a gringa feel safe?

Apparently, a lot. I mean, I know I have a stuff problem. I know I'm taking too much with me, but after several rounds of elimination, I can't pare it down any more. Something tells me this needing stuff thing is going to change soon. I hope so anyway.

If I'm lucky, three hours of sleep, and then I'm off.

So, Rand...

I actually just made myself laugh out loud. I felt like a crazy, old cat lady -- minus the cats -- alone in my little apartment laughing at myself.

See, I've been listening to both the Jimi Hendrix original "Bold as Love" and the new John Mayer cover of it -- you know, for analytical purposes. Well, I was sitting here at my computer, wasting time by looking at Seattle Weekly online, and singing the song. (It wasn't long before I realized that I could have been listening to the real musicians sing the actual songs via iTunes.) The end of the chorus goes, "Yeah, they're all bold as love / Just ask the axis." Now, honestly, I wasn't even aware I was singing. You see, that's what happens when you're the cat lady. You start performing socially unacceptable behaviors without any cognition of it. But a little something jolted me out of my neurosis: I sang the lyrics like this, with every ounce of sincerity that I have, "Yeah, they're all bold as love / Just ask the atlas."

Okay, I realize that it's not that funny. After all, I think the atlas is more capable of answering any kind of question than the axis. It's just, well, that my subconscious self wholeheartedly believed that those were the lyrics. I guess you had to be there, but of course you weren't or I wouldn't have been singing to begin with. I hope.

A simple phrase hard to put into words

So this might be the first entry not really focused on music in, well, a freaking long time. Maybe, I did have a neat thought as I was driving down 641 yesterday...

I did my last microteaching thing today. It was okay. I really have mixed feelings about being a teacher. There are moments when I feel like I have a certain knack for it. And then there are moments when I am certain I have definitely gotten in over my head. Too bad those moments alternate like a strobe light in my head. Is that called manic depression? Ah, dear.

However, one thing I know that I have a knack for is creating really cool manipulatives to use in the classroom. (What am I? A kindergarten teacher?) Last night, I made some things I am calling "conjugation cubes." Basically, they're a set of three cubes that you can move around and, by so doing, make Spanish sentences. What I like is that they are sort of, um, interchangeable. Right now, they are covered with pronouns, regular -AR verbs stems, and present -AR verbs endings. I realize that none of that probably makes any sense, but here's the point. They could be covered in something totally different. They have Velcro covers that you can take off and replace with different Velcro covers. I have to say that I am pretty dang proud of them. You should ask to see them sometime, and I'll let you have a look -- as long as you promise not the steal the idea. A patent could be in the works...

So I know I am weird and all, but I got a little something for you. I had something like reverse deja vu this weekend. Maybe that's not the way to describe it, but I'll try. For who-knows-how-long, I have had this sort of "flashback" to a place that I've never been. Weird, I know. Well, this weekend, I was finally there. That's all I am going to say. I know that dreams and dream-like states are the hardest thing to talk about. It is so fascinating to the dreamer, but when you try to explain it, it doesn't make a lick of sense. So there.

Well, I have to go give up the rental car now. I suppose I could get all of my stuff out of it first. It's back to the ol' Taurus for me. It drives like a tank. It will definitely feel like that after driving a little tumble bug for a couple weeks.

Hmm. Yes, I think the music-related posts tend to have more substance. Therefore, I'll let you in on my 641 musings.

Music -- all forms of creative expression, really -- is like an imprint of the soul. I had heard some lyric -- could've been "I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for" or "I hope you can feel me in the air" or something else of that nature -- and I began thinking about the separate entities of body and soul. You know, questioning it, considering the magnitude of its implications, what have you. And it ocurred to me that art, namely music, is a way of extracting soul from the body. We can use our mouths to put forth a voice or our hands to write a story, but what is left on paper or in the air isn't our body. It's something intangible. And I have a hard time believing it's just particles in the air bouncing against one another. Maybe it is. You know, I really have no idea. But it's through those airwaves or rearranging molecules or whatever that people are able to connect with one another. Here's what I am saying. Sometimes knowledge -- specifially, really knowing someone else -- seems so inaccessible. Even attempting to comprehend the concept of "soul" boggles my mind. But there is something about creative expression -- be it a painting, a dance, a song, a poem, a nicely turned phrase in a conversation -- makes knowledge a little more accessible. It puts the soul in a language we can understand.

Moonlight through the pines

The coroner pronounced the Buick dead yesterday. Hopefully we can all dry our tears, though. There may be life after death. The insurance people calling it a "total loss" doesn't mean she can't be fixed -- just that fixing her will cost more than she's worth. But the family and I are talking it over, and it looks like her mechanic dependability -- and the $800 air compressor we put in less than a week before the wreck -- are worth more than a used car that just might blow up at any minute.

I met with the Fulbright rep on campus today. That went well. We just talked over the possibilities and application and stuff. The application process is a doozy -- that's how dictionary.com told me to spell that -- if there ever was one. Turns out, though, that if I apply this year and don't make it, I can apply again next year for the same program at the same time. Thank you, overlapping 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years.

I'm kind of stressed out about all of it, though. Between figuring what to do about my car, the increasingly insane summer class, and Fulbright to think about, I'm getting a little crazy. Just because it's summer. I could excuse this during the school year because it's supposed to be hectic. I just want to relax, really.

To make up for it, I did some impulse shopping. I put my little toe across the line and ordered a Soul Patrol t-shirt from Neighborhoodies. I know, I know. But it's cute. I got it in "asphalt" (err, dark gray) on gray (err, light gray). I should be ashamed, but I'm not.

I had the strangest realization yesterday: I love songs about Georgia. It's true. I must have some subconscious fascination with the state. And I always that it was North Carolina... Huh. It occurred to me when I listen to Taylor's (who would've guessed?) cover of "Georgia On My Mind" for the thirty-fifth time. "Why Georgia" has always been close to number one on my John Mayer list. And then, today, when I was rummaging through some Iron & Wine songs to learn to play on guitar, I remembered that "Sodom, South Georgia" is the song that, every time I hear it, I start making amazing lesson plans in my head -- see, I could be teacher -- about the use of figurative language, specifically similes. Beautiful song. And I ended up learning to play it, by the way.

Papa died smiling / Wide as a ring of a bell / Gone all star white / Small as a wish in a well / And Sodom, South Georgia / Woke like a tree full of bees / Buried in Christmas / Bows and a blanket of weeds -- "Sodom, South Georgia"

Everybody is just a stranger / But that's the danger in going my own way / I guess that's the price I have to pay / Still "everything happens for a reason" is no reason / Not to ask myself, "Am I living it right?" / Why, tell me why, why Georgia, why -- "Why Georgia"

Georgia / Georgia / A song of you / Comes as sweet and clear / As moonlight through the pines / Other arms reach out to me / Other eyes smile tenderly / Still in peaceful dreams I see / The roads lead back to you -- "Georgia On My Mind"

I've been running ever since.

I am beginning to wonder if I have ADHD.

It has come to my attention (deficit?) that I am incredibly fidgety. I cannot cannot cannot sit still. I remember that when I was a kid, my mom was constantly on me about messing with the mini-blind string behind the couch and about kicking things with my feet. I pop the battery cover on the remote control incessantly. Too bad that the remote for my TV now has a screwed-on battery cover. In my education class right now, we have little name plates that we've made for ourselves. If someone ever needed to know my name, they'd never see it because I am flipping and twirling my name plate around the whole time. I am a pen clicker. I cannot help myself.

Being an education person -- God, the regret -- I have to think about these things. And as I have come across some ADHD symptoms, it is like looking in a mirror. All the signs are there. I don't have the patience to proofread. My mind is incredibly scattered. Just look at the babbling incoherence that is my blog.

My whole life -- or just recently, whichever -- I have been trying to channel that confused and pent-up energy toward something. I have wondered why I have about nineteen hands-on projects going on all the time. I have a new one, by the way. I have a dulcimer now. Play me some mountain music, yeah.

Interestingly, according to those personality/learning styles assessments, I hardly ever come out as a kinesthetically-inclined person. I am beginning to think they are all wrong.

Now, I think I am going to go run a lap or something, thank you.

Will it go 'round in circles?

This happens about once a year. I rediscover the John Mayer that I love. I know. I have a tendency to be gross about my fandom. But I don't care. This time, it was Taylor Hicks' fault. Well, there were several things -- some involving Taylor, some not.

One of them happened when I was in the shower, and I had my iPod/FM transmitter/jalopy stereo system going. And Taylor's live version of "Tighten Up" came up on shuffle. He started off the jam telling about how the song was from 1973 -- think that's wrong, by the way -- and he was singing it. You know, the year. And he starts doing this "Way back, way back, way back, way back in nineteen seeeeventy-three" scat type thing. And that's when I had the epiphany. This style reminded me so much of some of John Mayer's stuff. I went back and listened to "1983" and some other live tunes. The pieces started falling together.

I had read -- somewhere in what I like to call my "research" -- that Taylor (yes, first name basis...you want a piece of me?) wants to tour with John Mayer. I kind of laughed at that, but now, I'm catching the groove of this. It all makes sense.

I've been doing this thing which John Mayer once called a musical family tree, or something. Basically, it's just listening to the music that influences the music you like, and you keep moving around, listening to the influencing artists. It wasn't long before I got to the Taylor Hicks/Ray Charles/John Mayer connection. There are some other overlapping things, yes.

Turns out, though, that it's that "soul thing" (I wrote a sufficiently cheesy journal on my Last.fm page about it) that ties them up together so nicely in the music-loving part of my brain. It's when each performance of a song is an individual work of art. The music and lyrics as they appear on a page might very well be art, but when they are given breath, that's when they come alive -- obviously. I've watched somewhere around six or seven versions of Taylor singing that semi-lifeless "Do I Make You Proud" song, and each time, he does what he can to give it breath. He injects a little improv, and you know, soul. And it works. Not every singer can do that. It really does take an artist.

That's why, back in the day, I could listen to three different versions of "Your Body is a Wonderland" or "Daughters" or "Something's Missing" or "Covered in Rain" and it felt fresh and soulful each time. And that's the point, apparently, because as it turns out, John Mayer has a MySpace and uses the blog feature. And on there, he mentions something about the Trio song "Vultures" going on his new album (next month, maybe!) and being a different creature than the one we know because it has grown. A song is not just a song. The performance -- the living soul in it -- has everything in the world to do with it. It's not art until there is actually an artist behind it.

That's the problem. There is so much music right now -- pop crap -- that is just manufactured. For instance, I really like Maroon 5, but I remember at the Nashville show, I was so impressed with how much the song sounded exactly like the record. And that didn't sit well with me. Now I know why.

I mentioned this on the Last.fm thing. I like the imperfect music. It's like that thing Holly talks about -- the "needing to be airbrushed" factor. I like the music that isn't flawless. It's when the sour notes in Taylor's version of Elton John's "Levon" and John's "Man on the Side" become the highlight of the song that you've found something. It's a little bit of Soul peeking out. Paula Abdul might be hopped up on OxyContin, but I think she was actually right when she told Randy that what might seem pitchy to him is really the essence of Taylor. When the song's grabbed ahold of you and those kind of notes bust out, it's real. And that's what I like. Real.

I remember the first time I encountered it. About eight minutes into John's nine-minute version of "Covered in Rain" on Any Given Thursday, he comes up for air after about four minutes of tripped-out jamming. After a little bridgey thing, he starts singing the chorus again, and it is this huge burst of emotion. And the song was no longer just a song. It's the same thing that happened when Holly and I first heard the acoustic version of "Disease." It will make you cry, and you almost cannot explain why. But it's because it's not fake music. Turns out that Rob Thomas has a soul.

So, yes. That's what I love. Real music, warts and all.

As a closer here, I have a few John Mayer things that I didn't know until just recently:

Again, the Continuum album is supposed to come out some time soon.

He's on the Cars soundtrack. The folks at iTunes won't let you just download his version of "Route 66" though. It's an "album only" track.

I bought the new Dixie Chicks album about a week ago, and today, I found out that he's featured as the lead guitarist on the track "I Hope." I don't know how I missed that.

And like I said, he's blogging on MySpace. And has been for a long time. Check it out. The man has the best vocabulary I've ever seen in my life.

he doesn't even wear socks

Considering this is the first time I have actually seen my redesign on an actual computer screen, I just now discovered how terribly uncomfortable it is. I'm sorry. Not fixing it. At least for a while. I did change the picture, though. I didn't realize how crappy that "washed up" looked against those trees. But I really did like the font. So I'll probably change it again when I get home. You're right. I'm never satisfied.

This is what, the third week of school? I'm already quite tired of it. I'm already habitually getting up later and later. And that first burst of academic ambition is waning rather rapidly. I'd rather stare at a brick wall (or some other exercise in futility) than actually do what I need to do for class.

:-/ And the semester finally just reared its true, ugly head. The crazy lady just came into the library. Why can't she just go to Applied Science? I think she's following me. Okay, now I'm the crazy one.

That's not an impossibility, either. Last night I had a rather humorous dream in which I was a drug dealer. Okay, so even in the dream, it wasn't something I was used to. I just happened to have a small stash that I needed to get rid of. I haven't a clue how it came to be mine. I finally decided who I was going to sell it to, but I was mortally afraid I would get caught, so I dumped it into his socks. Yeah, I don't know. The funny thing is that I'm pretty sure what I was selling to him was itty bitty wild onion bulbs. Maybe that's why he ripped me off. He paid me with a $120 bill, and he and his friend took off with my cell phone and the contents of my wallet. So what's the moral of the story, kids? Don't try to sell baby onions to Justin and Ryan. By the way, I miss those boys.

Alright, alright. I'm going to focus on homework now. I need to do something different. 'Cause I'm pretty sure I just saw Steve Zissou and the three-legged dog walk by the library.