Reason Breeds Insanity

Could you email me please? I lost your phone number, and I only have Ed’s. I called you for your birthday, but I am not sure if Edwin actually let you listen to it or not?!? Oh, yeah, Hi, Ed!!!! Oh, and Bec got you something really cute, so could you send me your new address, too?

I should have gone to hear Hillary, but there is something about the idea of my house being right across the river that assuages any bit of regret I could have had. The facts that I had police circling my house, and that our road was blocked off so that her bus could enter Muncie Central’s parking lot, sort of brought home the state of our states. We are under constant surveillance, and that isn’t a good thing! I still love some Hillary. Unfortunately, Becky and I will be canceling each other out in the primary, but I guess at least we are both voting in the same primary, which is nice. I have several friends/students who got their pictures taken with Hillary last night. They both volunteer and work for her campaign, something I said I would do, but I don’t have time to do. I am glad I can live vicariously through them.

Today, I am grading, reading, and going to Ivanhoe’s for dinner. I NEED a milkshake! Yeah, I’m cheating the animals!

This may sound bad, but I think I am skipping out on one of the greatest loves of my life, Hillary Clinton. She is going to be in Muncie tonight and I don’t think I am going. I have fifty annotated bibliographies to grade, and I have to speak on a panel in the morning about becoming a graduate student at BSU. I am sure Hillary will be fantastic, but I am not sure that I can squeeze her into my schedule.

I am ready for this semester to be over, and I am sure my students are as well. We are working on their big research paper, and we are struggling along together. They struggle because they don’t want to write an 8-10 page paper with much less direction than they have been given before, and I struggle because I have never taught college students before. I want them to have some amount of ownership in their papers, but I feel as if they want me to tell them what to write and how. I am trying to teach them process, with an acceptable product, but they want the key to creating an A product. The key is honing down a process that you can live with! If you excel at the process, the product will usually be one that is acceptable and just needs a few adjustments.

I got a tattoo in San Francisco. It is a piece of wheat toast, a strawberry jam heart, and some mint leaves. I love wheat toast; in fact, it is one of my favorite breakfasts. The mint leaves are there to add a bit of color. I plan to get a half-sleeve done on that arm eventually. I want it to be able to be covered by long sleeves, but show when I wear a polo or a t-shirt. This tattoo is a good start. I got it done at Lyle Tuttle’s Shop in SF. Tuttle has tattooed several famous people: Cher and Janis Joplin to name two of them. He doesn’t do tattooing anymore, and he sold his shop to another owner, but he still speaks at conferences and pops into the shop occasionally. My tattoo artist’s name was Doug, and he did an excellent job on it. The jelly looks shiny, and the toast looks like wheat bread. I love it. I think it might be my favorite tattoo yet!

I haven’t gotten my pictures developed yet, but I am going to take them tonight and drop them off at Walmart so that I can pick them up next week when I get paid. I am going to get them all put on CD, because I want to use the pictures for gifts for friends and family. I thought they would be more worthwhile than wasting money on souvenirs. Hopefully, they turn out well. I think I may have one that I will want to blow up to hang on the wall—Golden Gate Bridge in the sunset on the way back from Alcatraz Island. There is even a sailboat in the picture. I hope it comes out as good as I think it will.