Not as Smart as You Think, Watch

Heidi and I rely on our smart watches to track our activity and exercise. Sometimes? That's a good thing, like when we head out for a walk or do a work out because we're behind on our rings. Sometimes, it's demotivating, like when one of us says, I don't have shit today! Why bother? and then plops down on the couch with some ice cream. 

A little while ago, I was in the middle-- I got my exercise and stand goals, but my activity goal seems unreachable. I could blame it on the cold or the fact that I spent a good chunk of the day in front of a screen working on grades, but tonight I shrugged it off and vowed to do better tomorrow. 

As I was verbally processing my decision, Heidi looked at her watch and noticed all her goals were at zero. Obviously a glitch-- she restarted her watch twice before she heard the little chime congratulating her for standing or something. 

"I can't believe none of the apps checked in with me all day!" she griped.

"I know!" I said. "As far as they're aware, you haven't moved since midnight! They should have been all over you to get the hell up!"

"Or call 911!" she added.

The Current Crisis

Yesterday I was enjoying a remote lunch with the colleagues I used to eat with every day before the pandemic. We were chatting about this and that: the weather, students, return to school, and of course, vaccines. Which one will your parents get? Did you have a reaction to the second dose?  How effective is P or M or J against the various variants? What company is closest to having the next approved vaccine?

"A year ago who would have thought we would be so interested and well-versed in big pharma?" I laughed. "I doubt I could have named a single company!"

"Maybe the one that was responsible for the opioid crisis?" Liz suggested.

"Probably," I said, thinking. "Who was that again?"

Err... 

As well-read and knowledgeable as the three of us are (clearly evidenced by our awesome 9 out of 11 on the NY Times weekly news quiz-- equal or better than 88% of other readers!), we all drew a blank.

I guess there's only so much room for misfortune in any brain, or three.

17 Syllables

Friday is reading day in homeroom and our school always provides a great book talk from a staff member to inspire the kids and give them some good ideas about their next read. Today one of the counselors recommended Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez, a celebration and commemoration of the lives of revered African American artists and activists. As a follow up activity, the students were asked to write haikus for dedicated to people who inspired them.

The haiku is a deceptively simple form of verse. So often, young writers tick off the 5-7-5 syllables and call it a poem, and that is what most of my homeroom students did today. What they didn't take into consideration was how serious an editor I am. Those first 17 syllables they write usually reveal the topic, but not much more, and I love collaborating with poets, digging into their intention, meaning, and word choice, to find a way to use every syllable to its fullest advantage. 

Fortunately? A short poem is quick to revise, and in the 20 minutes we had, the kids submitted draft after draft in staccato quick fire, rearranging lines, cutting adverbs, and paring their syllables to uncover the essence of inspiration. 

"Do you like this draft better?" I always ask. "You don't have to say yes-- just be honest."

"Yah!" one student told me today. "I'm going to take it to my parents right now!"

Snow Day

The sharp smell of wood smoke filled the air when I stepped outside to walk the dog this evening. All day long a wintery mix of precipitation had tapped on the windows, but by 4:30 the sky was a bit lighter and the air was still. It was cold though, below freezing, as it had been for the last 24 hours, and an inch or so of icy snow drew a gauzy veil over all the grassy slopes and valleys in this hilly neighborhood making them ideal for fast but gentle sledding. Everywhere we walked Lucy and I heard the shouts and squeals of small children sliding on saucers and toboggans and then trudging back up  in the fading daylight for at least one more go. 

Downhearted

In anticipation of taking a dive into conflict with the young fiction writers in my class, today the intro question was What is something you hate to do? Most of the kids were quick to answer: dishes, chores, cleaning my room, homework, stepping on my little brother's legos, and so forth. 

But one student, who is usually quick and earnest on the Chat Snap was silent. "I can't think of anything," she unmuted to report.

"Nothing?!" I asked, mugging for the camera with wide eyes and exaggerated double take.

"Yeah," she confirmed, "I don't hate anything."

This kid is awfully sweet, and I kind of believed her. Or at least I believed that she believed it. "Do you have any pets?" I asked.

"We're getting a dog soon," she said.

"Well," I told her, "I think you might hate picking up dog poop. I do!" I paused to think. "What about chores?"

"I like chores!" she replied in a very credible tone.

"You are amazing!" I said. "I love your positivity! What about exercise? Burpees? Donkey Kicks?"

"I don't mind any exercise, except push-ups," she answered.

"Do you hate push-ups?" I asked.

"Yeah," she admitted.

"Well, put it in the chat!" I told her with false cheer, because rather than experiencing that satisfaction that accompanies talking another writer through the process to dig deep and find some inner truth, instead I felt kind of bad for forcing a sunny little kid to admit to some inner shade.

We're Going to Need a Bigger Toothbrush

I went to the dentist today for the first time since October 2019. My regular appointment was scheduled for just a few weeks after everything shut down last spring for the pandemic, and well, time slips, even more so these days. But having had my first dose of the vaccine, I called to schedule an appointment last week, expecting it to take some time for them to fit me in. But as luck would have it, there was a cancellation and so my teeth are sparkling and clean.

"Have there been any changes?" the hygienist asked.

"I think I might have a little more sensitivity to hot and cold," I told her.

"That is a classic symptom of clenching," she shook her head. "Have you been doing that?"

"Well, yeah," I answered. "These are kind of stressful times!" 

She laughed in agreement and continued her examination. "Go ahead and bite down for me," she directed, moving her fingers to my jawline. Her eyes widened. "Wow!" she said. "Those muscles are like little rocks. You really have been clenching!"

Oh Ho the Radio

Often when we're traveling by car I like to scan through the radio stations as we go, hoping to hear something new or something I haven't heard in a while, or even better, discover a station with a format and playlist that is surprising and satisfying and so pleasurably passes the time. As music, like so much other media, becomes more and more solipsistic, such stations are more and more rare. Sometimes, I worry about the future of radio. 

But today, as we were whizzing around the Richmond Bypass on our way home from the beach our scanning landed loud and clear on Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. "What the heck!" I said to Heidi, and peered at the display screen: Radio SNTA.  The next cut was a hilarious mash-up version of The Twelve Days of Christmas by Straight No Chaser, and then the DJ, Santa himself, broke in to explain that he wasn't ready to head back to the North Pole quite yet, and so Richmond got to enjoy some holiday spirit a bit longer than usual. 

Truth be told, I was hooked (and Heidi is very tolerant), so we sang along with an interesting and charming assortment of holiday songs until we were halfway to Fredericksburg, where the station faded into static and Christmas was past once more.