about Suzanne:
1. She's very pretty.
2. She's very smart.
3. She can organize just about anything.
4. Her laugh is the best.
5. Her cheekbones.
6. One of her favorite movies is Overboard.
7. Somewhere along the line she started liking country music.
8. She thinks about her children constantly.
9. She's a snappy dresser.
10. She's fascinated with big families.
11. She always remembers faces.
12. She tries hard to serve people, even those who don't want to be served.
13. Her Girl Scout nickname was "Snow White."
14. Her pet names for her children usually revolve around food.
15. She makes really good, healthy food.
16. She makes me laugh.
17. She's borderline-addicted to Facebook.
18. She doesn't ask for much for herself.
19. She contains her crush for Hugh Jackman pretty well most of the time.
20. She loves her sisters very much.
21. She took a bowling class at Ricks College.
22. She sees the humor in a toothless Illinois Valley guy sitting on his porch with no shirt smoking a cigarette and raising his can of beer to us as we pass.
23. Few things give her comfort like a tall, frosty diet Pepsi from the fountain at Casey's.
24. Her favorite book in high school was Lord of the Flies.
25. She loves TJ Maxx.
26. She doesn't care about sports or cars.
27. She introduced me to Middle Eastern food.
28. She decided to get a cat even though the thought of cat hair all over the house repels her.
29. She sees the value in things and people that others might disregard. (I mean, she married me, right?)
30. She encourages me and her children to be more compassionate.
31. She occasionally bursts into dance when entering a room.
32. She ran a half-marathon.
33. She knows all the lyrics to the Wonder Woman theme song.
34. She's a good teacher.
35. Even though she's tough, she's also tender.
36. Even as I write this, she's in Avery's bedroom talking to her about life. She's an excellent wife, mom, sister, daughter, and friend.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUZANNE! I LOVE YOU!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Bathroom Business
One little quirk of the campus where I work is that all the men's restrooms are on the first floor and all of the women's restrooms are on the second floor. It's an oddly designed building in general - it's very M.C. Escher-esque in its various staircases and levels - but the bathroom thing was just plain poor planning. When I first got there a year and a half ago, I wandered all over the second floor near my office looking for the bathroom and couldn't figure out where they all were. Finally, someone told me I had to head downstairs.
Anyway, at the beginning of this academic year, the president of the college announced that they would be adding bathrooms on each floor so there was something for everyone on each level. That announcement got the biggest round of applause during the whole meeting.
So I've been watching the progress of these restrooms over the last couple of months and it's been fascinating. The facilities won't be the same size as the already established bathrooms - they're actually converted storage rooms. But they've gone from bare, stripped-to-the-bones spaces to finished rooms.
I've watched the sheet rock guys, the tile guys, the electricians, and the plumbers do their thing and, to me, they're freaking wizards. They're like the athletes of construction. It astounds me how some people can just build stuff. My brother and Dad have rebuilt whole houses from the ground up and they, along with the bathroom guys, just seem like magic to me.
I can write an essay. I'm pretty good with metaphors. I can grade a paper in mere minutes. But install tile? Plumb a toilet? That's the magic.
Anyway, at the beginning of this academic year, the president of the college announced that they would be adding bathrooms on each floor so there was something for everyone on each level. That announcement got the biggest round of applause during the whole meeting.
So I've been watching the progress of these restrooms over the last couple of months and it's been fascinating. The facilities won't be the same size as the already established bathrooms - they're actually converted storage rooms. But they've gone from bare, stripped-to-the-bones spaces to finished rooms.
I've watched the sheet rock guys, the tile guys, the electricians, and the plumbers do their thing and, to me, they're freaking wizards. They're like the athletes of construction. It astounds me how some people can just build stuff. My brother and Dad have rebuilt whole houses from the ground up and they, along with the bathroom guys, just seem like magic to me.
I can write an essay. I'm pretty good with metaphors. I can grade a paper in mere minutes. But install tile? Plumb a toilet? That's the magic.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
In Colorado
It's midnight in Illinois but only 11 p.m. here in Denver. This means I have another hour and forty five minutes until my flight leaves. Being sleep deprived in general just kinda sucks. Being sleep deprived in an airport is worse. Being sleep deprived in an airport where all the shops and restaurants are closed and everyone else looks like a zombie too is worse still. Being sleep deprived in a closed airport that smells like a urinal cake is the worst indignity of all. Seriously Denver, what's your damage? Why do you smell like this? Aren't you relatively new and space-age? Detroit's airport smelling like a bathroom wouldn't be any big deal. O'Hare smelling like one of Larry Bird's used sweat socks would make sense. But Denver? I thought everything here was all high-mountain and crisp and clean. Then again, maybe they're trying to make it smell like Boulder and what I'm actually smelling is pot and patchouli.
I have a ton of papers to grade. They're in my bag. I wish they would go away. I wish I would open my bag to find that they've all magically already been graded. Then again, I also wish I were asleep in a large comfortable bed right now and that I'm resting so well because I just got done counting my millions of dollars. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, knowwhutImsaying?
I always feel like I'm going to run into someone I know when I'm in airports. (Okay, the three thirty-ish BFF women sitting a few seats down from me need to shut the hell up. Whatever it is they're laughing at, I bet you a million dollars it's not that freaking funny. Shut up, laughing women! Shut up!) Anyway, I have never run into anyone I know at the airport except for that time I saw Jeffrey R. Holland getting off a plane - and it's not like I know him-know him. It's not like I could say "Whussup my homey?" (Which, btw, is what I say to all my close friends. If I haven't said it to you, perhaps we're not close enough friends? Think about it.) But for some reason, I always feel like some old high school buddy or college girlfriend is going to come around the corner. Weird. (Okay, laughing women got up and left. Good. I hope they spread their obnoxious brand of middle-aged camaraderie somewhere else - like Tulsa.)
Aaaaaaaannnnnyway. Those papers are still in the bag. I can feel them leering at me through the flap of my messenger bag. They're saying things like, "We are full of errors, buddy, so you'd better get to it." and "Man, did you not teach these kids anything? They don't even know what kinds of titles to put in quotation marks and which to italicize. Have a good time with fixing 900 titles." and "Why, no, we won't grade ourselves so you can sleep. Do it now. DO IT NOW!" If the papers were people, I'd kick them in the face for their behavior and backtalk.
Parker is sick at home. Apparently, she threw up a six ounce bottle of formula plus peas from earlier in the day. She managed to get it on Suzanne, the couch, the throw pillows, and the floor. Like father like daughter, I guess. My brother David was asking me to retell the throwing-up-at-a-school-assembly-in-fourth-grade story. I was telling him to shut up and leave me alone.
Maryn was sad that she didn't win the Young Authors contest. It would have been her third year in a row of winning so I don't feel too bad for her. And yet, there is something in me that always wants to be the winner too. A girl I know from grad school just got a really schmancy tenure-track position at an elite liberal arts college in North Carolina. It's not like she doesn't deserve it and it's not like I don't have a full-time tenure track job too - it's just that I want to be the best at stuff. Is that so wrong?
Is this post getting too personal? Maybe I should stop writing and get to those papers. (Or I could try to find a place to sleep - I find the scent of urinal cake very soothing late at night.) Meh. Enough. Maybe I'll post again later in Detroit. (Or maybe I'll sleep.)
I have a ton of papers to grade. They're in my bag. I wish they would go away. I wish I would open my bag to find that they've all magically already been graded. Then again, I also wish I were asleep in a large comfortable bed right now and that I'm resting so well because I just got done counting my millions of dollars. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, knowwhutImsaying?
I always feel like I'm going to run into someone I know when I'm in airports. (Okay, the three thirty-ish BFF women sitting a few seats down from me need to shut the hell up. Whatever it is they're laughing at, I bet you a million dollars it's not that freaking funny. Shut up, laughing women! Shut up!) Anyway, I have never run into anyone I know at the airport except for that time I saw Jeffrey R. Holland getting off a plane - and it's not like I know him-know him. It's not like I could say "Whussup my homey?" (Which, btw, is what I say to all my close friends. If I haven't said it to you, perhaps we're not close enough friends? Think about it.) But for some reason, I always feel like some old high school buddy or college girlfriend is going to come around the corner. Weird. (Okay, laughing women got up and left. Good. I hope they spread their obnoxious brand of middle-aged camaraderie somewhere else - like Tulsa.)
Aaaaaaaannnnnyway. Those papers are still in the bag. I can feel them leering at me through the flap of my messenger bag. They're saying things like, "We are full of errors, buddy, so you'd better get to it." and "Man, did you not teach these kids anything? They don't even know what kinds of titles to put in quotation marks and which to italicize. Have a good time with fixing 900 titles." and "Why, no, we won't grade ourselves so you can sleep. Do it now. DO IT NOW!" If the papers were people, I'd kick them in the face for their behavior and backtalk.
Parker is sick at home. Apparently, she threw up a six ounce bottle of formula plus peas from earlier in the day. She managed to get it on Suzanne, the couch, the throw pillows, and the floor. Like father like daughter, I guess. My brother David was asking me to retell the throwing-up-at-a-school-assembly-in-fourth-grade story. I was telling him to shut up and leave me alone.
Maryn was sad that she didn't win the Young Authors contest. It would have been her third year in a row of winning so I don't feel too bad for her. And yet, there is something in me that always wants to be the winner too. A girl I know from grad school just got a really schmancy tenure-track position at an elite liberal arts college in North Carolina. It's not like she doesn't deserve it and it's not like I don't have a full-time tenure track job too - it's just that I want to be the best at stuff. Is that so wrong?
Is this post getting too personal? Maybe I should stop writing and get to those papers. (Or I could try to find a place to sleep - I find the scent of urinal cake very soothing late at night.) Meh. Enough. Maybe I'll post again later in Detroit. (Or maybe I'll sleep.)
Sunday, April 18, 2010
In Idaho
I am sitting in my parents' kitchen in Rigby, Idaho as I write this. My Uncle Roy, my dad's youngest brother, passed away three days ago from pancreatic cancer and I am in town for the funeral.
Roy was diagnosed about nine months ago and tried both homeopathic and more traditional treatments. He lost a lot of weight, was tired, and was in constant pain toward the end. Roy was an excellent person and did a lot to help me and my family more than once. I'm sad that he's gone but glad he doesn't have to suffer any more.
There's a viewing tomorrow night and the funeral is Tuesday morning in Malad. I'll head back down to Salt Lake Tuesday afternoon and fly out on a red eye at 8 p.m. I won't get in to Midway in Chicago until 8 a.m. so it will be a long night of multiple layovers and dragging myself through several airports. Oh well. The trip has already been really worth it. My dad and I stayed up until about one last night talking about Roy, about the family farm, about my mom's cancer, about retiring from work, and stuff like that. It seemed like he really needed to talk so I'm glad I'm one of the people he chose to talk to.
I'm also appreciative of Suzanne who, when I told her I felt I needed to come, told me to get busy buying a plane ticket. This is the second time in as many months that I've left her with all the girls by herself. She's a superwoman and I appreciate her support.
Anyway, my two in-town brothers and their families are coming over for a post-church meal and I'm looking forward to that. Steak and Grandma's pickles for all!
Roy was diagnosed about nine months ago and tried both homeopathic and more traditional treatments. He lost a lot of weight, was tired, and was in constant pain toward the end. Roy was an excellent person and did a lot to help me and my family more than once. I'm sad that he's gone but glad he doesn't have to suffer any more.
There's a viewing tomorrow night and the funeral is Tuesday morning in Malad. I'll head back down to Salt Lake Tuesday afternoon and fly out on a red eye at 8 p.m. I won't get in to Midway in Chicago until 8 a.m. so it will be a long night of multiple layovers and dragging myself through several airports. Oh well. The trip has already been really worth it. My dad and I stayed up until about one last night talking about Roy, about the family farm, about my mom's cancer, about retiring from work, and stuff like that. It seemed like he really needed to talk so I'm glad I'm one of the people he chose to talk to.
I'm also appreciative of Suzanne who, when I told her I felt I needed to come, told me to get busy buying a plane ticket. This is the second time in as many months that I've left her with all the girls by herself. She's a superwoman and I appreciate her support.
Anyway, my two in-town brothers and their families are coming over for a post-church meal and I'm looking forward to that. Steak and Grandma's pickles for all!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
I Love This
Here is a link to an article by James Sturm, a graphic novelist who, for four months, is going to go completely off line. No email, no Google, no nothing. As he is a graphic novelist, he's going to write and draw pictures of his experiences and someone else will post them to Slate.com.
He writes about why he'd want to do such a thing. He wants to be a better parent and not always be thinking about when he can get back to his computer to check his email. He wants more time to focus on doing what he does - making comics. He wants less strain on his eyes. His first two paragraphs caught my attention:
"The last 10 years have been a blur. I had two kids, produced several graphic novels, moved to Vermont, bought a house, and started a college: a two-year, MFA-granting school for cartoonists in a small railroad village. I'll be 45 years old in October, and with middle age comes the horrifying realization that my time on earth is way too short and—biologically speaking, at least—it's all down hill from here.
'It all goes by so fast,' is one of the those clichés you hear throughout your life, but now, when another parent says it as we discuss the joys and sorrows of child rearing, it sounds like the most poignant thing I've ever heard. The question I've been wrestling with lately is whether it's all going by so fast because that's just the reality of middle age or because of the way I've been living my life. Specifically, I've started to wonder whether that feeling might be connected to all the time I spend online. Too often I sit down to dash off a quick e-mail and before I know it an hour or more has gone by."
Being a big fan of projects, as I have previously written, I love this idea. It's crazy and I wouldn't necessarily want to do it myself - but I love it. Giving up the Internet is one thing, but doing something cool like making a comic about his experiences and then sharing those with others I think is wonderful. So tune in to see how he does.
FYI to Students
If you are a student of some kind and want to be responsible and notify your instructor if you're going to be absent, that's great. However, there is a line. There are things you just don't need to share.
Case in point:
"Mr. Brown
I was unable to make it to class today. I have a urinary tract infection and would have been interrupting class, running to the bathroom every ten minutes. Please let me know any assignments I missed. Thank you!"
That's a little something I like to call....
TMI!
Case in point:
"Mr. Brown
I was unable to make it to class today. I have a urinary tract infection and would have been interrupting class, running to the bathroom every ten minutes. Please let me know any assignments I missed. Thank you!"
That's a little something I like to call....
TMI!
Monday, April 5, 2010
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