Today Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity International died–a sad event for many friends of S. and mine who happen to work for the organization in Atlanta, Americus, GA, and other locations around the world.  Millard was at times a controversial figure, but he worked hard, transforming lives around the globe, bulding homes and restoring dreams.  The world is a better place for  his having given what he did to house families in this country and countless others.

It should also be noted that Lexington is suffering today from its second snow storm in less than a week.  Good God–how much wintry weather can one city and one state endure!  At least the dogs are enjoying the opportunity to romp in the white stuff.  Lucy loves to bury her face in the powdery fluff.  Strange creature!

Today it actually felt good to be back in school.  I seem to be getting in the groove again, for which I am most grateful.  For several days I struggled terribly, so much so that I had begun to fear I might never get back in gear.  At last my academic  motor is humming along quite happily.  Now if only the university would grant us a few more days  free from classes in honor of this latest round of wintry weather, I may go romp in the stuff with our dogs  and stick  my own face in the fluffy stuff  like Lucy.  Better to bury your face in the snow than your head in the sand, I suppose.

Classes resumed normally today, and for the most part it felt good to be back on campus.  I am sad, however, that I have had to cancel my students’ service learning project for this semester.  This, in fact, makes me sick, as it is usually my students’ favorite activity.  Deborah offered a couple of suggestions today about alternative projects.  My students usually work with Habitat for Humanity.  But her ideas were all food-related and would not mesh well with my class focus on place.  So, I believe, I will abandon the idea of service all together for now.  I simply don’t know how to make it work in the time available.

Today I did group conferences in my office–usually an opportunity for students to practice peer work shopping while I am present and able to offer feedback.  Often peer review is not successful when done in a classroom setting, so I try to make the experience more meaningful and productive by modifying how and where it happens.

On another note, I might mention that we are expecting another round of wintry weather tonight and tomorrow.  Hopefully this will not interfere with classes, as more missed sessions would likely cripple my students progress, what little of it we have been able to make.  At this point I’m looking more and more forward to extended time away from the classroom.  The first week of May and my departure for Asia can not get here soon enough–oh, to be Bangkok bound!

Something is very wrong with me today and I don’t know what it is or how to define it.  I only know that I want to curl up in a ball and hide from the world–sleep–maybe read.  I feel anxious.  Actually more than anxious. I’m experiencing a sense of foreboding that comes close to terror every now and then.

S. asked me earlier what was bothering me, and I insisted nothing was amiss.  But I was wrong, and S. saw it all before I did.  She said I seemed spacey–out of it.  And I do feel a bit dissociative.

I wonder if this could have anything to do with it being Super Bowl Sunday–a Super Bowl in which the Pittsburgh Steelers are competing, nonetheless.  Does this relate to the dread I experienced as a child on days like this?

Lord!  I just don’t seem to have time for this blogging thing.  Yesterday I spent so much time reading student essays that I wrote nothing.  Today it feels equally challenging to find time for  this.  Presumably one must carve out space in the day for this kind of creative process.  Oh, well, at least I’m writing something now.  Surely that effort makes up for some squandering of opportunity earlier in the weekend.

At any rate, S., Laura, and I went to see Revolutionary Road late this afternoon–a worthwhile way to occupy  a cold Saturday in January.  The movie, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, is about a young couple, April and Frank,  living in  the suburbs of the 1950’s, attempting to not settle for all that life represents–attempts to domesticate the American dream or any dream for that matter, to settle for the ordinary over the extrordinary, comfort over discomfort, routine over adventure.  It’s about what happens when we attempt to domesticate any radical way of thinking or being in the world, about what happens when revolution becomes a destination rather than a journey, what happens when being and evolving are reduced to  been there and done that.

And, I guess that’s what this blog is about in some ways–about our unwillingness to suburbanize ourselves, our refusal to tame our own wildness, to believe that the West is something to be conquered, that our impulse toward the native should be colonized on some suburban block in some subdivision or other.  Clearly we would rather run with the wolves than domesticate the dog.  We are women; hear us roar.

S’s offer letter has not yet arrived.  We received an email early Tuesday morning that the letter should come that afternoon.  This is Thursday evening and still nothing.  It’s beginning to make S. crazy with worry.  I feel less concerned, believing she would not have been assured the letter was in the mail, if indeed the offer were in danger of falling through.  It’s hard for me to imagine a scenario where that would be a possibility.

In the mean time, we continue to make progress cleaning out the junk room and preparing it for paint.  Today we managed to move all of our Christmas decorations into the attic, along with boxes of miscellaneous God-knows-what, including a dog crate, old journals, picture frames, television, VCR/DVD player, empty cat food cans, etc.  You name it, it’s up there.  The only items not stashed over-head were candles and photographs.

I might also mention that S’s sister Laura is here again tonight with her little dog Grace–Ralph and Lucy’s canine cousin.  It feels good to have them here.  However, as I type this my eyes keep closing and I am more than ready to rest.  In that spirit I think I’ll roll over, turn out the light, and dream of all things Asian.  Good night.

I mentioned yesterday that we had ice and snow.  However,  conditions have worsened today.  Two days ago the inclement weather began with snow, before changing to freezing rain.  After more than 24 hours of icing, this morning the snow began again and continued until mid-afternoon.  Public schools have been closed all week and are canceled again tomorrow.  The university has been out for two days, but I can’t imagine that we won’t have classes in the morning.  I can anticipate not having to go to school tomorrow, if tree branches are still falling at UK or sidewalk ice has not been cleared.  I would love to stay home again, as then I won’t have to work again for the rest of the week.  At least we, unlike many across our state, have electricity.  My brother and sister-in-law and S’s father and sister, Laura,  are all without power.  In fact, Laura and her shitzu Grace are staying at our house tonight to both have light and avoid hypothermia.

Besides drama regarding the inclement weather, there’s still not much excitement in our lives.  S’s offer letter did not arrive yesterday and didn’t come again today.  In the mean time we’re continuing to clean out our junk room for Rachel.  And actually we have made some  headway in that endeavor–finally.  I had begun to fear the junk would be piled in there for another decade at the very least.

At any rate, I should finish this, so I can visit with Laura.  This is the first time she has ever spent the night with us, and we won’t be here much over the next year to spend time with her.  Certainly, we’re excited about our upcoming adventure, but it will be sad to be away from our families.

No school today due to snow and ice.  Hooray!  Not only do I not have to drive to campus on the ice-slickened roads, not only do I not have to teach, but also I’ve gotten a good bit of work done at home.  It doesn’t get much better than that!

On top of this, S. received an email this morning announcing that her offer letter should arrive in the mail today!  Out mail carrier has not yet made it to our house this afternoon, so as of yet we do not have letter in hand—-but damn this dream is close to becoming a big, blooming miracle!

In light of this, I felt inspired to work cleaning out what had been my second closet upstairs in the guest room.  Shortly, S. will be moving her clothes into that space, so we can make a closet available for Rachel.  My productivity on that front amazes even me, as I filled three large trash bags with clothes for the Goodwill and disposed of stacks and stacks of previously unsorted mail.  The closet is now pretty much ready for new occupancy.  The completion of that task means the junk room/Rachel’s  room is one step closer to being painted.  I feel a sense of urgency about that space, as any global disaster could have S. overseas in a matter of days.  Well, maybe not, she still has to apply for and receive a business visa prior to departure.

But the fact remains that we are moving forward finally–at a fairly slow pace, perhaps–but we seem to at least be on the right road–that is, one that heads East.  We seem to indeed be Bangkok bound.

Clearly I need to dedicate more time to beefing up this blog, which I’ve neglected of late, due to school-related responsibilities.  Mea culpa!  The problem I face is this–my life right now remains routine and the Asian adventure with S. has yet to begin.

I should mention, however, that school is moving along well.  I enjoy teaching and do not yet feel paralyzingly busy.  My students seem reasonably engaged, and currently I have the energy to relay information with enthusiasm.   Let’s see what happens later this week when my first set of essays arrives.  At that time I may feel less pep, less passion, less poised when facing freshmen.

But, gosh, this process of writing seems agonizingly painful, slow, and tedious.  Perhaps, it’s good for me to struggle in this regard.  Maybe I’ll approach my students with more empathy and be better equipped to respond to classroom questions about the process of composition.  Hopefully that will happen.  At the moment, however, I plod by way through each post.  At the moment blogging sucks.

Yet my office mate Amy said this morning that she thought I should write a book about this year’s experience–the experience of traveling in Asia and Africa while my partner responds to global disasters.  Yes, the adventure would seem to lend itself to excitement and drama.  Yes, I appreciate Amy affirming that I should do what I fantacise about doing.  But writing a book would involve just that–writing.  And, dear God, the whole process of compostion currently cripples me.  To think this is the subject I’m supposedly qualified to teach.  What a hoot!

However, S. just said something significant–namely that the real challenge for a writer is to take the ordinary details of life and make them meaningful, make them add up to something more than themselves.  If that’s the case, these months at home should provide good practice  in the craft of composition.  The process of pounding out post after post should better prepare me for the task of actually writing a book.  Perhaps, a year from now I’ll be begging for a bit more of the mundane.  Now that’s a crazy thing to think about!

For two days straight I have worked on a drawing that can be used as a logo or banner for the mountaintop removal event the Writing Program is sponsoring in April.  Because of this project, yesterday for the first time since beginning this blog, I posted nothing.  I’ve been trying this evening to upload the piece to this post but have not yet succeeded.  Technology makes me nuts.

At any rate, I’m too burnt out from that creative effort to write much of anything here tonight.  I want to toss this laptop aside and curl up with a book in an effort to decompress before the launch of a new week’s worth of responsibility.

Sometimes I wonder if I should bother blogging on days when I have so little to say.  Is it worth the effort?  Does it matter that I say nothing of real meaning or merit?  Surely, if I had regular readers, they would stop looking for updates, if all I posted were shit like this.  And, god knows, I wouldn’t want to alienate any of my non-existent fans.   So please keep reading.  At the very least, I promise  this writing can’t get much more pathetic than it does this evening.

S. and I did the grunge thing this afternoon–visited an antique/flea market establishment called Feather your Nest,  hopped over to the Good Will thrift store for clothes to beef up our wardrobes, discovered a new used book store in the same section of shopping center, and stopped at a new- to-us sandwich establishment, where I attempted to eat the chicken salad with a none-too-sturdy plastic fork that bent back on itself each time I tried to stab a chunk of ice burg lettuce.   That’s what you get when you try to eat healthfully in a joint more famous for its classic club on toast than its salad du jour.  At any rate, it was all quite fun and, perhaps, one of the few such adventures we’ll be able to share before Samantha heads off to Asia, where, golly-jee, we’ll have a new nest to feather.