Mail Time

I just finished reading the first four books in Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. They are books written for tweens about girls who go to a special school where they learn to be spies. There is a part in them where one of their teachers tells them that you can learn a lot about a person by going through their trash. This is true...see my old post about my garbage spilling in the road and my neighbor coming to the rescue. But, I also think you can tell a lot about a person from their mail. To illustrate, here are two examples from my life:

1) Yesterday, my roommate came walking inside with the mail. She looked at me and said, "Let's look at this...you got an issue of English Journal and some other thing called Voices from the Middle (a magazine for middle school language arts teachers). My mail...Victoria's Secret catalog, Alloy catalog."

2) We usually get two types of packages at our house. Sometimes, they will arrive on the same day. On those days, there will be two boxes on our porch. One for me from Amazon.com and one for my roommate from Victoria's Secret (she get actual clothes from there--like shirts, shoes, and stuff). To further illustrate this, today I got not one but two packages from Amazon--one was a biography on Pablo Neruda (a poet) written for kids; the other was a book called, I kid you not, The Glamour of Grammar.

Guess which one of us has a boyfriend?

Turn My Swag On

I was informed today by an 8th grade student that I have "swagger." I told him that since I'm a 26-year-old white woman, I didn't really think that I could ever truly have any kind of swagger. He then went on to tell me that I do--it's apparently all about my attitude. I had no idea I was this awesome. Kind of impressed with myself right now....except for the fact that I just finished the end of a fabulous British chick lit series (Hester Browne's Little Lady Agency) in the bathtub while drinking a glass of red wine (because they are the kind of books that put their foot down, put their hands on their hips, and loudly demand to be read in a bubble bath) and am currently watching an episode of The Rachel Zoe Project. All of which I deem to be rather unswagworthy.

But apparently it doesn't matter what I'm doing because I do it with the right attitude.

Random Musings

Usually I have a few random thoughts and observations that never make it to my blog because I can't write an entire post about them. So, I have decided to start randomly posting some random musings. This is also due to the fact that I really like the word musings and wanted an excuse to use it on a somewhat regular basis.

1) Last weekend, I went to Atlanta to visit my roommate from college and go to the LSU v. UNC game (even though we didn't go to LSU or UNC--we just like football and someone offered us tickets). It also happened to be the weekend of DragonCon in Atlanta. DragonCon is a big science fiction/fantasy conference. The people who go to DragonCon dress up. I'm not sure what they dress up like, but I do know I saw Batman, Captain America, Harry Potter, Dumbledore, Dracula, plus a bunch of other people who I didn't recognize at all. I just knew normal people didn't dress like that. My old roommate and I met her parents for dinner at Hard Rock in Atlanta. The restaurant was full of people dressed up for DragonCon or wearing LSU or UNC gear. I spent the whole time thinking about how weird all those DragonCon people were in their costumes. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that the DragonCon people probably all thought that the football fans looked ridiculous. I mean, we football fans (especially in the South) dress up, spend our whole Saturday getting ready and going to games, yell a lot when we get there, and refer to our teams as "we" even though we're not playing. It's really its own brand of weird--and who's to judge whether it's any weirder than the DragonCon bunch.

2) I'm currently having a tv crisis because I cannot watch three channels at once. People who schedule sporting events should be forced to take this into consideration. I mean, right now, I want to be watching Nadal's quarterfinals match at the US Open, the Auburn v. Mississippi State game, and the Saints v. Vikings game (because I started Drew Brees and Adrian Peterson in my school fantasy league this week--so every time Drew Brees completes a pass I feel compelled to yell "Points for me!"). I got a little stressed when I had to make this decision. I know that some people can do that flip-back-and-forth-a-lot-thing, but I have to pick one main event to focus on then just check scores during commercials and stuff. I finally ended up with tennis as my main event. Then I started to panic. Does it make me less Southern that I opted against the SEC match-up? Am I somehow less American because I'm watching the all-Spanish quarterfinals match instead of football??

3) I have issues of Sports Illustrated in my room for students to read--they can get it from our library, so I don't worry about the content (except for obviously I don't keep the Swimsuit Issue in there....). Today, a student came up to me and showed me an article about the college lacrosse player who was killed by her boyfriend this summer. I had heard the story, so I just told him I already knew about it and agreed that it was really sad. Then, the same kid brought the magazine back to me, very concerned, and told me that I might not want to have it in my room because it was inappropriate. He was holding out a page with an ad for Viagra on it. Ok, so that's inappropriate, but the article about murder you don't have a problem with? Hmmm. Maybe those people who argue all the time that violent video games desensitize kids and are bad for them have a real point....

4) I recently took a recommendation from a student and read the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter. They were adorable. All week as I read, I would talk with my student about them. The main character is 15 (she turns 16 in the books), and her dad died sometime before the books start. So, her mom is single and is also the headmistress at the spy school. In the first book, they get a new, cute, guy teacher. So, I say to my student, "I kind of want Cammie's mom to date Mr. Solomon." She just looked at me like I had said the strangest, most random thing ever. Yeah, her response was that was weird and that she had never really thought about it. That's when I realized that I'm kind of old--I identify with the mom in the story, and I think about the mom falling in love with someone. Because I'm closer in age to the mom than I am the main character of the book. I proceeded to feel old for all of lunch and recess.

Fake Fall

It was well documented here that I read The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud this summer. And loved it. But, even though I'm about to use another quote from it, this post isn't about the book. I promise.

Anyway, there's this whole scene in the book where one of the characters talks with another one of the characters about how people who have died can still find ways to pseudo-interact with people who are still alive. (And yes, I'm leaving out their names because I think everyone should read the book and I don't want to give anything away.) Then, in the afterword, there's this rather beautiful quote:

"That's death and life, you see. We all shine on. You just have to release your hearts, alert your senses, and pay attention. A leaf, a star, a song, a laugh. Notice the little things, because somebody is reaching out to you. Qualcuno ti ama. Somebody loves you."

I love fall. It is my favorite season. Anyone who lives in the South knows all about how we have a season that I like to call "fake fall." The mornings will be a little chilly, but by noon it is really hot. It's like fall is a really cute boy and mornings are his way of flirting with you. But 90 degree afternoons remind you that he's really being elusive and playing hard to get. While "fake fall" can be annoying, I love it because "fake fall" mornings embody a certain hope that days not defined by oppressive heat are getting close.

Identifying a "fake fall" morning is quite easy. Any Southerner knows you have to leave your air conditioner on during "fake fall" unless you want to be really warm in your house when you get home from work. This results in your bedroom being a tad on the cold side when you wake up in the mornings. Not so cold that you don't want to get up, but cold enough to justify snuggling down and hitting snooze one extra time. Some people might find this annoying, but I love it--for the same reason I mentioned earlier, it lets me know real fall is close.

This morning when I woke up I was cold. The chill in the air of my room brought a huge smile to my face as I snuggled deeper into bed and welcomed "fake fall." The welcoming was confirmed minutes later when I checked the thermostat in my house and it read 68. I got really excited, did a little dance by my bed, and thanked Jesus for the cool morning, which, since it was the first one of the year, totally made my day. The first morning of "fake fall"--along with the fact that my school had scheduled my students for MAPS testing today (which meant I got to read a book all day!)--meant I left my house for school in a remarkably good mood.

It wasn't until I got to school and was writing a pass for a student that I realized that today is September 8th. My dad's birthday.

I'm not entirely sure how theologically I'm supposed to think about the whole Charlie-St.-Cloud-dead-people-pseudo-interacting-with-alive-people thing, but I know that I like to think it's true. That it happens. When I realized today was my dad's birthday, I know I felt like "fake fall" happened today just for me. That it was his way, his little thing, to tell me he loves me. And it made me remember that if I ever feel alone, I really shouldn't. Because my dad's still with me. And he's also with my Heavenly dad--I think secretly plotting ways to make me remember that they're around and that they love me--enough to start a new season, which in my book is kind of a lot.