days of naze

a big geeky fan
11:21 PM

Me to the 19 year old checker: "O.k., this may never happen to me again so I want you to look at this People magazine."

19 year old checker: [Worried I'm crazy...]

Me, holding open People Magazine: "This is my friend, Rob. He wrote this awesome book about his daughter. He lives in Texas. [Checker humoring me but not sure if I'm crazy or not.]

...

Three and a half stars, baby. Rob is gonna sell him some books. Check out the Robster on Texas public tv (yes! public tv in Texas!).

back in the high life again
10:58 PM

It has been a very hard two weeks. (And my little ones are now experiencing some unpleasant times of illness...)

My home was turned upside-down with whole rooms and floors shifted and cleared. Displacement and disruption. Reflooring, wood dust everywhere, screaming circular saws, strangers (however nice) in the house.

My car was hit on New Year's Eve and now in the shop for the last week. The driver's side door well dented and the mirror well crunched. That in addition to the numerous dings that the ex had accumulated over the years.

In the long, slow, laborious reestablishment of order in the house, I found my trusty black PC, my Millenium Falcon, to be in perfect working order except in one small regard - the internet connection. The PC was not recognizing that the network cable was, in fact, connected. And the mouse was jerking and stuttering in a maddening fashion. AAAGGGHHHH!!!

Other areas of my life were in disarray, especially in regards to the fairer sex and the less fair ex. Lastly, a virus had it's grip on me: sore throat sinking into the chest, painful cough, mucus not pretty.

Today?

The rounded end of my emerald green Camry shines, burnished and smooth. (That awful rental gave me such an appreciation for the buttery transmission of my Toyota...) It hasn't looked this good since I bought it 8 years ago.

The Falcon soars. A short tune-up at the local shop plus a new mouse has her making the Kessel Run in less than 7 parsecs.

The crud is nearly defeated. My energy is high and the workout yesterday felt amazing.

The house has been transformed. The new floors are everything I hoped for and more. The little Nourison rug in my bedroom is a delight. The Karastan for the living room will arrive later this week.

An amazing weekend of art: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Gerding Theater, Sondheim's Into the Woods from a colleague, and a classic book recommendation from Calamity Jane, the smartest woman I've met in quite some time.

Damn, life is good.

reality check
10:13 PM

Sometimes you wonder if you are getting the job done right. Contrary to what some may have you believe, learning is not a linear process.

I wonder if I'm reaching every student. Am I sacrificing quantity of contacts by spending a quality 6 minutes with a student in a writing conference rather than rushing through two students in 3 minutes? Are my lessons well-crafted enough that my Somali boy is getting something out of it? How long can a 10 year old stay in gear mentally before he/she can't help but check out? Are my games/jokes/stretches getting old? The new reading curriculum: not crazy about it, but there is some good stuff in there... Am I using too much or too little of it? Are the extra hours I put in at night and on the weekends enough? I'm worried that we're not spending enough time on math...

My boss, the principal, tells me the area director (her boss) is visiting a classroom in each school and would it be o.k. if he spent half a day in mine? A new teacher I met in grad school showed me that an open-door policy is best: you want to be open to new influences and help. It's also about believing in your teaching. "Yes, you bet."

The area director turned out to be a pretty cool guy. He was a Washingtonian that spent his first years of teaching in the far north of Alaska where the standard mode of travel is snowmobile.

At the end of the day, my boss caught up with me, smiling. "He said, 'Christopher is obviously a master teacher'".

I forget that my expectations of myself are sometimes unreasonably high... But I'm still not satisfied.

February 21, 2008

my fancypants author friend
03:14 PM

I've been reading Rob's writing online nearly as long as he has been writing it (1996). That is why it was such a thrill to tear open the Amazon box and find his extraordinary book "Schuyler's Monster" (St. Martin's Press).

I know pretty much every part of this story, but nonetheless I devoured it in less than 36 hours - a rare feat for me. In my congratulatory e-mail to Rob, I talked about the difference. There is something fundamentally different in the flow and intimacy of a book that is subtle and profound compared with the online experience. It is, in fact, a different work having been honed and crafted over the last 2 years.

We do quite a lot of writing in my classroom. It was a second thrill to put Rob's book under the document camera - "My friend wrote this" - and read them passages from it. It's the struggles and hardship in life that make the best stories. They really get that now.

February 17, 2008

saturday afternoon
03:02 PM | Comments (0)

stone, water, green life
ingredients for garden -
add daughter and dad

February 06, 2008

i love my sister kim
11:49 PM

I was in a serious funk. Moving whole rooms of furniture. Again. But this time by myself.

I'm usually on my game as a dad, but earlier today I really screwed up. The new floors are looking great, but the labor and disruption have been really stressful. As I sort through stuff, tossing a bunch, I feel the exhilaration of change but also a sadness at the passing of moments gone. I'm also missing someone quite a lot.

And then the phone rings.

Of course, it's Kim calling from Colorado. We talk about everything as I continue lifting, sorting, sweeping, and carrying. And I feel lighter, like a 50 pound sack is off my shoulders.

As we say goodbye, I tell her this.

She replied, "You know, Grandma, had that too. She just had a way of knowing you needed her."

going through the referral logs...
12:12 AM

Who doesn't like to hear their last name chanted to a thrashing Arabic beat and danced by two guys in black suits?

I present to you: "alison - naze". Can a quarter million hits be wrong?

February 03, 2008

floored
11:38 PM

I've lived in my Hawthorne District home for 17 years now - a full 7 years longer than my childhood home in Longview, Washington. Over the last 3 years, I've made changes that have been a long time in the dreaming: removal of the nasty siding that hid the gorgeous woodwork underneath along with a 3 color painting that flatters its Portland bungalow style and a complete kitchen remodel.

This weekend, with a marathon of assistance from my son, Jack and my mom, I've got the place ready for badly needed re-flooring. When David, my 11 year old, was a baby, he suffered from respiratory problems. We hypothesized that the light brown shag carpet (an artifact of the previous owners) was a contributing factor. I spent a good week of summer pulling up carpeting and matting and thousands of staples on my hands and knees. We left a few patches: the stairway and the upstairs hallway.

The pine floors underneath weren't in the best shape. We painted the edges of the floor and covered the rest with a patchwork of old rugs - some that in their former lives were quite fine, others cheap acquisitions.

And that was the status quo.

I consulted the flooring gods. There was a good chance that my painted pine floors would never realize their former glory.

I chose a regal cherry laminate for the kitchen remodel. I've lived with it for 2 years and I still dig it.

The downstairs bedroom, hallway, dining room, and living are bare and echoey, ready for their makeover. Next, we'll move whole rooms of furniture like slow, titanic jugglers, making room for the flooring guys to do their stuff.

Pictures later.