when will it end?

I have been sick since Sunday. Misery. Troy and I went to Skyline Drive, and drove 99.9 miles to get there, drove 53 miles each way along skyline drive, and then 99.9 miles back. The view was beautiful, and totally worth the drive, but, unfortunately, the altitude change meant colder weather on the mountain, and I came down with one hell of a head-cold.

for anyone who may stumble on this blog and not know, Skyline drive is a 150 mi (169 km) road that runs through the Shenandoah national park in Virgina. The road is along the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and stretches along US rt 81. During autumn, the view is spectacular with the color of changing leaves, and the sky is usually pretty clear during this time of year, so the view stretches out for miles. It is really interesting as you ascend the mountain slowly, to drive into the micro-climate of the top of the mountain. When we went, the valley was in complete sunshine, but the top of the mountain was cloudy and ominous. Beautiful. I think, and I may be confused, that the road has been named one of the most impressive roads in the world because it travels along the peaks of and through a range of mountains. I think I remember seeing it on the History Channel's Modern Marvels.

so that is why I am now sitting, bundled up, at my desk, and periodically sneezing all over my macbook.

being sick always reminds me of being a kid. is that strange? so, in the spirit of being sick, here is one of my favorite childhood poems by Shel Silverstein:



SICK
"I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.
And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in.
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There's a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
What? What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is .............. Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

ten books to read this year

Since winter break only lasts so long, I am going to condense my reading list to one book: The Brothers' Karamazov.

I read constantly during the semester, but never what I want to read. I get stuck with things like Logic of Language, Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, and The MLA Handbook. Not my favorite things to read. For Christmas, I asked for and received quite a few books, including Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and the complete collection of Fairytales from the Brothers’ Grimm. Sure, these sound like children’s’ books, but they really aren’t. Any Writing Major or Writer, for that matter, who has not read those books should be ashamed.

Writing is about telling stories, and a writer who does not read is probably not a good writer. One does not understand the art of good story telling unless one first investigates the classics.

I have an extensive library ranging from current best sellers to classics, to self-help and chat books. I have read…. most…. of my books, but there are a particular few volumes that continually hide from me and avoid being read. I have made a list of the next ten books that I will read no matter what. Excepting those required texts for the coming semester, I will read no other books until I have completed the list. (Perhaps I will be lucky enough to find one or two from my list on the textbook list this semester. Doubt it, but it is possible)

1. The Brothers’ Karamazov
2. Don Quixote
3. Garden of Eden
4. House of Mirth
5. Galapagos
6. Mrs. Dalloway
7. West Side Story
8. Les Miserable
9. Catch 22
10. The Catcher in the Rye

How, you might ask, have I survived as an English/Writing student for so long without reading some of theses books??!! I really must be a poor excuse for an English major, having not read The Catcher in the Rye. Non-readers accost me all the time and try to get the best of me by telling me how they ready TCitR and Animal Farm for their Freshmen Composition class. I am perfectly happy having skipped over that class altogether.

I find that I have developed a horrible habit: I do not read the required reading for class; I wait and read it the week after the semester ends. I never have enough time to devote to each book, so I wait. Otherwise, I read sections of the book and have no interest to read the whole thing later. I just wish professors understood this instead of thinking that I am lazy. It never occurs to them that I simply take my education more seriously than they do.

Green

The Day Green Went Away

On the day that green went away, Oliver was swinging in the netted hammock between the two largest oak trees in the yard, repeatedly tossing and catching his favorite ball. The orange ball with green spots that Uncle Seth had given him on his 7th birthday.

Oliver liked to toss the ball in the air and watch the orange blend with the green spots as the ball spun back to his hand under the weight of gravity. His dog, purple, sat, tongue hanging out, tilting his head up and down with the movement of the ball, watching it every time it came down, waiting to retrieve it, should the duty befall him.


This particular day was no particular day at all. One of those days Oliver’s mom called a “lazy day”, which meant that the day had done so much work yesterday, that it took a vacation today. No storms or wind or car accidents or babies being born, or laws being passed. Just a quiet, sunny, pleasant day.

That’s why Oliver couldn’t understand what the day must have been thinking when it took green away. One second there was green, and then it was gone. The trees and grass and even the spots on the orange ball turned different shades of grey like the photographs of grandpa when he had hair. Purple didn’t seem to notice the change, he just continued watching the ball and when Oliver, startled, dropped the ball, purple rose to his duty of fetching it and then running around the yard with it.

Oliver would normally shout for purple to give it back, but he, instead, overcame his fear of stepping on the new grey grass and ran to the kitchen where his mom was washing perfectly yellow dishes. She hadn’t noticed the change, and had no time for Oliver’s silly stories.

“Go outside and play,” she said, and Oliver obeyed.

But when she turned on the news after dinner that night, she went straight outside and bent down to pick a blade of grass. She was pleased that the day had left the color on her flowers. She could do without grass, but the color of her flowers made them the healthiest and most beautiful in the county, and she had a trophy to prove it. She could do without green, green didn’t win trophies.

The day, after spending so much effort on taking away green, decided not to give it back right away. People were still surprised to find it gone when they woke up the net morning, like a dream that should disappear seconds after brushing your teeth. But the day went on. Adults went to work, children to school, and everyone collectively came home for dinner and worried about whether green would ever come back.

People began selling tee shirts and mugs and bumper stickers announcing “Save the Green” or “blue plus yellow does not equal grey”. There were entire shows and newscasts dedicated to discussing the cause and results of the missing green, and where it had gone.

One man in a country Oliver never heard of found a single blade of green grass hidden under his porch, and some other man bought it for a lot of money and put it in a museum where people from all over the world went to see it. People who lived in the desert said that this wasn’t such a big problem, but that’s because they barely had any green to begin with.

Scientists conducted big studies and lots of research to try and solve the green problem, and a few even tried to breed fresh grass from the museum grass.
Some people said it was because the world was going to end, and others said it was because people forgot to turn the lights out when they left a room. Other people thought it was because of the decrease in penguin population, and a few more thought it was a sign from god. Many people knew that it had to be because of the war. But Oliver knew that it was just because the day had decided to play a trick on the world.

Oliver’s mom even tried to scrub the leaves and grass and the green carpet in her bedroom, and Oliver’s ball, and purple’s collar. She said it might be because they were dirty, but even scrubbing couldn’t fix it.

When the day finally went back to work, it brought the first rainstorm in months. It lasted several days, and people were so happy that the water ban was over and they could fill their swimming pools and wash their cars, that green became a thing of the past. Oliver was the only person paying attention when the rain went away and took the grey with it, leaving green in its place. He spent that day in the Hammock between two large trees, throwing his ball in the air and watching the orange and green blend together as the ball spun above his head.

why zert zed no longer likes red

Why Zert Zed no longer likes red
(a work in progress, but on hold, pending inspiration, time, and patience)

Zert is a boy.
His last name is Zed.
Zert loves the color red.
His pillow is red,
so is his bed
and also his bear
Whose name is red ted.

Zert likes to draw things and color them red.
he drew two fish
and one fat cat.
He drew a dog, a frog,
a mouse and a bat.

He drew them all fast, right before bed
“But tomorrow”
he said,
“I will color you red.”
“you all will be red
red you shall be.
Anything red is just fine by me”

Zert jumped into bed and counted red sheep
In just a few minutes, Zert was asleep
And dreaming red dreams.
But some dreams aren’t as nice
As at first they might seem.

Zert dreamed the whole world was red
Not just his pillow, much more than his bed.
The ground was red, the sky was not blue
He was red, and his house was red too.
In a world colored red
Everything looks the same

Things that crawl and fly
and swim and walk
Look just the same
as things that sing and things that talk.
What a shame!
Things that went and things that came
Everything looks exactly the same.

Zert woke from the dream and jumped out of bed.
And he said,
“If my name isn’t Zert Zed…”
(and Zert Zed is his name)
“I will not allow this, I will not be to blame
for coloring the world red
and making everything the same”

He looked at his drawings,
(the things that he drew)
he thought for a second and knew what to do
“I’ll start with the fish” said Zert Zed
“the first will be purple, the next shall be yellow,
the fat cat will be an orange-ish-colored fellow!”
he made the dog brown and the frog green
not red, but just like others he had seen.
The mouse he colored grey, and the bat he made black
He colored and colored and colored and colored
And never looked back.
“I’m sick of red” said Zert, whose last name is Zed
“Many colors are better than one
when everything is one color the world is no fun”