If I wrote a book . . .

I don't ever actually plan to write a novel, but if I were going to, I know exactly what I would write about. I would write about a colorful man who planned all of his life to cease to exist after his death. But he was wrong. He ends up being busier than ever trying to communicate with a group of women, former friends, who are still living. He passionately wants to wake them up to the solutions to their various problems. He ends up trying all kinds of crazy things to get attention.

As he does things like going into one friend's house and mysteriously leaving the toilet seat up, or appearing as a gluttonous blue jay who actually minds her when she talks to him, he begins to reflect on the long talks he had with her about relationships. We find out all about the interesting relationship between her mom and dad who never exactly liked each other, as well as the story of her own quest for love. He even throws in how perfect it would have been if she had only responded to his own advances when he was alive.

Meanwhile, he shows up as various crazy people in the life of another former friend who is studying to be a therapist. He especially enjoys playing the roles of her sisters who, in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor, recount the family horror stories concerning dead animals, and carry on incessantly about their own eventual deaths. We also get to watch as he inspires her father to spend his last few minutes alive playing a practical joke on the family gathered around him.

He also shows up in another friend's life every time she loses self confidence, which is quite frequently. He wears himself out sparking memories of him telling her, "You're right, you do suck," and laughing as she began to argue. He gets frustrated with her as she tries to follow her passion for teaching writing. She is fairly unsuccessful, since she has recurring fears that she is crazy. He finally decides to lighten up and begins speaking to her through silly comments made by her therapist.

The book ends as the group of friends who end up referring to each other as "sistas," come together for a summer party and discuss whether their dear departed friend who loved to wear lipstick was actually gay or not. And though they can never quite figure that out, they do come up with some answers to some of their own problems as they laugh about him. They each learn, in their own way, that life is less about the meaning of the events that occur during it, and more about acceptance. He even learns a little about acceptance himself, and comes to terms with his responsibility of continuing to have an afterlife.

I am going to read fiction.

I am about to say the same thing I have said so many times before! I have got to cut down on the non-fiction. Too much reality can be such a struggle. Lately I have found myself drawn back into the promise of everlasting fulfillment if I will just put into practice all I am learning from my teaching books and health books.

I think for at least a little while I will shield myself from the glaring reality of my shortcomings and try to enjoy life a little more. In almost all fiction books it seems that the problem, no matter how bad, gets solved and makes me feel good about life without having taken a single bit of action on my part.

Instead of writing as much as I usually do, I think I will get back to this book I started today. The first chapter made me laugh out loud. This woman drowns and is disappointed that she's only 35 and is still stuck in her corpse as the fish eat her and the water washes her flesh away. Suddenly she feels her soul being sucked out of the rotting thing and feels herself joyfully leaping into the air at last. Seconds later, she figures out she is a flying carp.

I think that's enough to make anybody thankful for life in the moment. No self improvement necessary.

I love Stixy!

Stixy, an online bulletin board, works the way I think. That is a miracle in itself. I have always loved bulletin boards, at least the cork kinds for personal use. Schoolroom bulletin boards are another story. The cork boards are like life collages for me. I don't currently have one hanging in my house because I was trying to go for the less cluttered look. So yesterday, when I rediscovered Stixy, I was happy all over again. I have a nice neat place for a virtual bulletin board.

I first used Stixy two Christmases ago as I was trying to organize for the season and share my thoughts with my sister. The board allows uploads of pictures, documents (Christmas lists) and links. One of the fun parts is the sticky notes. They are available in many colors and have customizable fonts. They can be resized, layered, and moved all over the place. I love to put lists on the sticky notes. The board also has dated to do list widgets. Time and date are customizable. For some reason I like these much better than a calendar on a grid. These notes can be moved, layered, and even deleted. Important dates can be emphasized by making the to do list larger. For when a more linear calendar is necessary, there is a beta version that will actually synch with the to do lists. Hovering over a date will show the list!

Now I know there are many fancy productivity things available online these days. But the reason I like this one is that it is unpretentious and it allows for creativity. It doesn't claim to be fancy or do everything. The only annoying thing that I've found so far is that now and then I have a sticky note "fly" away from the others, and I have to drag it back. I haven't figured out what I'm doing to make that happen yet. The board itself has no boundaries. It can be as wide or long as desired.

Today I read a blog post about a way to make Stixy a desktop application. I don't think it will work in Vista, so that's bad for me, but it would be neat.

Just as a side note, on the 3M website there is a whole section devoted to classroom uses and lesson plans for using real post its. I can only imagine what combining these ideas with Stixy could spark. Have fun!

Inspired Teaching

Sometimes I just have to stop myself when I get caught up in a moment of inspiration about something work related, that is in my case, school related. I love to daydream about school, brainstorming solutions to problems ranging from lost jackets littering the stage like the floor in a Ross store, to getting all of my special education students to pass the state TAKS test. I go through phases of thinking that these things are actually possible.

Lately though, I've been trying to step back and gain some perspective about what it is that I actually want to accomplish as a teacher. Yesterday I came up with a plan to revive two struggling third grade classrooms full of students that we teachers keep saying "just don't care." As I daydreamed I had visions of 100% passing rates, teacher of the year awards, an "Exemplary" rating for my school, and plenty of incentive pay to fund next year's vacation. In my dreaming I also saw hours of noble sacrifice meeting with students, filling in some massive gaps in their learning, and doing large amounts of research into what would motivate the students to "get with it and do their best." I was sure I could do it if I could get the other two teachers to buy in and make some sacrifices of their own to do whatever it takes to meet these kids where they are and find a way to get them where we need them to be. Sounds great? Or does it?

One thing that I love about myself is my ability to dream. When I was still in elementary school myself, I remember thinking that if I died right then I would still be happy because I would have so much to think about in heaven. Even as a child, I felt I'd learned and experienced enough to create an infinite number of daydreams.

Fortunately, as wonderful as this teaching daydream seemed, I came to a point where I woke up and realized that it was not what I wanted at all. Not at all. I had somehow forgotten who I am. Like any teacher, I want ALL of my students to be truly successful, but I had forgotten my definition of success. If I could do anything, I would set a goal to inspire ALL of my students to love learning. I honestly don't care what it is that they want to learn. It doesn't matter. If they love learning they will be receptive to my teaching because there will be a point to it. They will learn to read because they have something they want to learn about. They will learn to write because they have something to say. If they learn to read and write for these reasons I will truly feel like I have reached far past mastery of the TAKS test. It would be nice if the students fill in the correct bubbles on the way, but it wouldn't be the measure of their success, or mine. Believe me, people wouldn't have to look at anything but the child to see results. No bubble sheet in the state can give testimony of learning like an enthusiastic and inquisitive child can.

I'm on vacation right now and still have two days left. I'm looking forward to having time to daydream a bit differently. I'm glad I had the victorious state testing dream. It jarred me into a clearer understanding of my role as a teacher. I will go back after vacation and work hard to inspire curiosity, enthusiasm and purpose in my students. There probably won't be any awards or merit pay for achieving those things, but it's what I want. It's what matters to me. It's my contribution to my students' true success in life.

I'm diabetic today.

I have been trying to write this post for 3 weeks. It just wouldn't happen. The first time I tried I got so depressed doing an image search for diabetes that I had myself a little mini-crisis that took up the rest of the weekend. The next weekend I was so busy enjoying life that I didn't want to begin to think about diabetes. And last weekend I got so busy trying to create a skinny avatar and trying to find a diet to go on, I never got around to writing.

So tonight I'm finally writing about it. And honestly, it's still difficult. Some days I feel like I participate in being diabetic and some days I don't. A couple of people who know me well sometimes ask me if I "am diabetic today." Strangely enough, some days I feel like it's not true.

Maybe it's because I got confused with how "being diabetic" unfolded. At first I was so incredibly sick, taking two kinds of insulin and being afraid to eat anything with carbohydrates. Then when I was experiencing what felt like too many lows, I would eat something sweet to raise my sugar level quickly. The food made me feel better. The bad thing is, when my A1C went down to 5.1 and I got off of insulin, I continued eating carbohydrates every time I needed "to feel better." For the longest time I had myself convinced that low blood sugar for me was anything below 100. I did everything I could to make sure it didn't go below that number.

Now that I understand that a reading below 100 does not constitute low blood sugar, even for me, I have a lot more freedom. I don't feel like I constantly have to monitor and have food with me for emergencies. Unfortunately though, I don't understand exactly where I am in the world of diabetes. Since it's "not so bad" anymore, sometimes I feel like I don't have it. It was a mistake . . . an 867 blood sugar number mistake. It seems like a serious illness that passed.

I have figured out that while I am taking metformin I can eat sweets and still get away with a 6.1 A1C. Even that number is confusing though. As I understand it, that number is high for a normal person. But for diabetics, I have seen many references to setting goals to be somewhere under 7.0. My doctor is satisfied with the 6.1. It seems like I must be doing ok.

I have an extensive library of books related to diabetes. In everything I have read, I can't find myself. I don't know if it is because my symptoms and circumstances aren't there, or if they are there and I don't see them because I don't want to see them.

Everyone should take care of their health. Right? So my feeling that I need to understand the diabetes must be my own form of creative procrastination. Some people have a close call with a health crisis and change their behavior. I did too until I stopped remembering I am diabetic, whether I am on insulin or not.

Last weekend when I was searching for a way to create a healthy avatar for me, I read an article that said overweight people with skinny avatars would lose more weight than those with avatars truer to their actual body size. Maybe there is something to paying attention to how I see myself.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could visualize a healthy version of me? A healthy version that is not solely motivated by fear of diabetes? I do think I need to put some serious effort into understanding more about the diabetes and how it affects me, but more than that, I think I want to start asking myself, "Am I trying to be healthy today?" instead of, "am I acting diabetic today?"

I can't.

When I first started teaching I had this cool way of responding to a frustrating day. I waited until it got dark, put a leash on my dog Max, and headed outside. We would cut through some bushes and across a small ditch, to find ourselves in a big empty field on the schoolgrounds next door to my apartments. We started at one end of the field and ran as hard as we could to the other end. Then again. And maybe again. And then fell, out of breath, in the big middle of the damp grass, and stared at the stars. We went home caring much less about anything stressful.

It would be nice if I could still do that. These days, if I run my knees feel like they will shatter under all the weight of my body. And if my knees held, my lungs would probably collapse. I'm way overweight and spend no time exercising. I can't run.

I noticed myself saying it out loud the other day, "I can't run." Then I thought about that for a minute. And for that brief moment I thought, "Yes I can; maybe not this second, but I could if I wanted to." Hard as it would be, I could do the things that would enable me to run that field again.

Encouraged by that little spark of possibility, I started thinking about other things I "can't" do. I can't dance. I can't go to this church or that. I can't learn another language. Couldn't dare travel to another country. Date? Are you kidding? I mentally ran my finger down this list of things I cannot do, and down past a lot more things I can't do. When I got to the bottom I thought, "Why not?"

Now many of the things on that list are things I don't desire to do. Those don't count. I'm not up for doing things just to prove I can. But when I was able to ask myself, "Why not?" this big free space opened up in my life and I realized I am much less limited than I thought. I could challenge some of my beliefs about myself. I can allow myself the freedom to dream. And then the ultimate freedom to try.

I'm not into pretending, so I'm not going to say I've actually tried anything on my "I can't" list. But I bet in time I will. Right now I will settle for having fun adding to my list. It is fun because I am able to see possibilities I never allowed myself to see before. The world looks much bigger to me. I can't wait to decide what to try!

Spaghettios and other Important Stuff

Ever try mindfully eating spaghettios? It's one of the most important things I've done all weekend. When I drove home on Friday afternoon I had big plans for enjoying the 2 days off. I was going places, buying things, creating things and learning a bunch of new stuff. It's Sunday afternoon now, and I can tell you, the weekend didn't go like that.

My car didn't move after I parked it Friday night. I haven't learned anything or talked to anyone except my family. I blew off grocery shopping and decided to live dangerously with only one bag of kitty litter. I don't know why, but it seems like backup kitty litter is important.

I didn't make a thing, though I moved around some art supplies. I didn't make any lists other than the grocery list that didn't make it out of the house. I didn't go to the bookstore or the park.

Though nothing went as planned, I'm more at peace than I thought possible. When I finished my spaghettios I realized the importance of all I already have. Realized I don't have to have new things, new experiences or new knowledge to make the weekend worthwhile.

While I have been fascinated by the whole "getting things done" movement, it doesn't really seem to work for me. "Adding value" to myself and my life doesn't make much sense to me right now either. The things that are important to me this Sunday night as I look back over the weekend are the number of times I petted my dogs, the smell of laundry detergent on my clean clothes, the time I spent sitting in mom's back yard, the naps I took, and the realization that spaghettios are good in this moment, not simply because they remind me of comfort food from the past or because they have iron and vitamins in them that might benefit me in the future.

Life is good. Right now. Just as it is.