25 Random Things About Me

I got tagged with this over at Facebook and thought I'd double-post it here. I think anyone who reads my blog has already been tagged with it.

Except my mother. Mom, you're tagged.

So is anyone else who hasn't been forced into this yet.

25 Random Things About Me:

1. I’m a good bit better singer than I let on. I’m just shy and am stuck at baritone (rather than a tenor or bass), so most music, church music at least, isn’t written with a part that quite fits me. I can sing the Phantom of the Opera quite respectably in the shower. I will never sing it for you at all.

2. I was a picky eater when I was young, but now, I can try almost anything and like it. Last year, I even developed a taste for kimchi.

3. My boxers are strange. For years, my sister and mother have thought it is funny to buy me the gimmicky boxers Old Navy sells (especially holiday themed ones), and that saves me from having to buy any boxers for myself. So that’s pretty much what I own. They double as a humorous chastity belt.

4. I have a curse on me.

5. I don’t throw away plastic utensils. I wash them and use them just like my regular silverware. People never fail to notice when they visit my house that my pantry and silverware drawer are half-filled with plastic throw-away items.

6. My biggest fear is of infants. Of dropping them, that is.

7. I once lived off of cheese and biscuits for a month. It is impossible to make me constipated.

8. Back in college, I would keep a notebook beside my bed because I’d wake up in the middle of the night with essays fully formed in my mind and write them down. If I didn’t get them written down right away, I wouldn’t remember anything the next morning.

9. I twice have written twenty-five page research papers in a single day. I made clear “A”s on both of them.

10. You know those stereotypes about how English teachers are grammar Nazis, spotting and ridiculing your every error. I’m sort of one of those. Be warned. I never miss taking note of your mistakes. (Though I’ll miss mine all the time.)

11. I mean no offense to anyone else, but Emmy Rossum is the most beautiful woman in the world. (I can now think of all kinds of good jokes concerning showers and The Phantom of the Opera.)

12. I think some of my students consider me the cool teacher. That means if you are a teacher and are not considered cool, you’re in a sad state. That bar is evidently set very, very low.

13. I’ve seen the “Beach Games” episode from season three of The Office over fifty times. Any time I’m feeling down, I just watch it again. It’s a good episode.

14. I almost never cuss or feel the urge to do so...unless I’m teaching my college classes. Believe me, I can restrain myself (96% of the time or so), but I’m always shocked about what I just wanted to say. And it’s not when I get angry either. I think I just like to shock them.

15. I don’t like my spaces to be too dirty...or too neat. I clean them constantly, but if things are too ordered, it bothers me, and I purposefully find a way to clutter things up a little. Despite the clutter, I’m extremely hygienic.

16. I’m a devoted reader of the New York Times. The bad rap it gets from so many is just utterly ridiculous. Oddly enough, David Brooks, a conservative writer, is my favorite columnist.

17. I’m nervous in crowds. I’m an extremely talkative person unless I’m in an enclosed space with a number of people; then, I shut down. I have to escape any crowd intermittently in order to stay sane.

18. I like spiders. When I was little, they were drawn to my bedroom for some reason and would just crawl over me and everything. I remember killing flies to thrown in spider webs to feed them. I don’t like knocking spider webs down.

19. I’m a decent cook and like doing it. But I absolutely cannot stand to do the dishes. I would cook two or three times as much as I do if I didn’t have to wash the dishes.

20. When I was tested for allergies, the doctor said that I had the most intense reaction to airborne allergens (cedar especially) that he had ever seen.

21. Despite those constant allergies, I pretty well never get sick. I haven’t been to a doctor since 2004.

22. I’m a lot more superstitious than any rational person should be. I, for instance, had to reach down to my floor and knock on wood after writing that last item. I think this superstitious streak is because I was born with that curse on me.

23. I’ve never been out of the country, but I plan to spend a year doing something crazy outside of the US before I die. What and when is yet to be determined.

24. I like my job a lot and generally like living in such a small town. If there were more people around who were close to my age, I’d probably stay.

25. Major emotional moments never make me cry—especially if someone else around me is crying. I’ve just never been one to really break down very much. But silly, cheesy things on tv (like Brett Favre’s wife telling him she loved him in a clip on MNF recently) make me tear up instantly all the time. I can’t stand to watch Sports Center because of all the “make a wish” sorts of stories they do.

The Pierce Curse Strikes Again

Yesterday at school, we teachers had all heard reports of possible bad weather today. As a result, we went to bed with a prayer that regularly graces the lips of West Texas teachers.

“Oh Lord, I am tired, and my students are stupid. Oh yes, and we happen to need rain again, too. So please, if it be thy will, I know you can address two of those needs with one big hail storm so that we can have a late school start. Forgive our students. Amen.”

The prayer was answered last night, and so the phone-tree kicked in so that everyone could know that school wouldn’t begin until 10:00 and that we could sleep late. I got the call at about ten till six, and immediately called the teacher I was assigned to call. I already had her programmed into my phone for just such a situation so that I could quickly get back to sleep and enjoy those extra needed hours.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have her phone tree printed out, so she didn’t know who to call. I got out of bed and found mine and gave her all of the information. That was painful but didn’t take too long. I nestled into bed quickly.

And the phone ring. The next teacher in the phone tree didn’t have hers either and had been told that I had mine, so she called me back to see who needed called. I got up and gave her the information and got back in bed.

And then the phone rang again. It was the next teacher in the phone tree wondering who he needed to call (evidently, everyone has my number). He was the end of the line, and so I told him so and got back into bed.

And then the phone rang again. This time it was Dad. He was asking me how the weather was. Did we have to wake up and go to school today?

All told, I got an extra twelve minutes of sleep this morning, though that twelve minutes was broken up by five phone calls. Such is life.

Three Notes

It's strange that the columnist I agree with the most is a conservative, but I think David Brooks is outstanding. I think I'm going to make my students all read the column he wrote today about respecting institutions. It's a beautiful piece. They should read it.


And with that notion of respect in mind, John Updike, the absolutely outstanding writer, died today. Last week, Andrew Wyeth, who had been my favorite living painter, passed away. What a debt we owe those two men.

I just wanted to say that.

Reminder #42

No matter how little is on tv, no matter how bored I am, no matter who is with me, no matter how much I want to make fun of him, there is never any good reason to watch Dane Cook's attempts at being a comedian.

That Inaugural Poem

I'll admit that during the inauguration yesterday I wasn't overwhelmed by Elizabeth Alexander's poem. Moments of it stuck out, for sure. I kept thinking, though, that I'd have to read it to evaluate it. It wasn't sinking in. It was too hard for the ear.

I was really curious to look it up, though, since my class is in the midst of our poetry unit, and when does poetry have such a stage? They'd all watched the inauguration yesterday. I looked it up, and read "Praise Song for the Day" again.

And it's really good. It's a tremendously concrete poem. She seems to mean it to be. That makes it difficult to read aloud, oddly enough. Abstractions about love and hope without the anything tying them down would have been much easier to hear, much easier to remember. It certainly is a hopeful poem. But it's a hope located in the day-to-day, where it's usually more difficult to find.

As such, it couldn't have been a better companion to Obama's sober speech yesterday.

We discussed the poem today in class, and things went surprisingly well. That line about enacting a "love with no need to pre-empt grievance" especially intrigued the students. That's a good sign. Maybe some change is coming.


Praise Song for the Day - Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.


Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

Adventures in the Kitchen

Believe it or not, I can cook a little. I can follow a basic recipe, and I don’t eat too badly. It’s sort of funny that several people at the school are convinced that I’m practically a chef, but I’m certainly not that. I’m just proficient enough.

Usually.

Tonight, I got hungry and decided to scramble myself a couple of eggs. That’s pretty well all I had in the house. Plus, what is difficult at all about scrambling eggs?

So, I did what you do scrambling eggs and at the end decided to sprinkle just a bit of dried, chopped onion in there.

Here’s where the problem comes in: Shaking chopped onions out of their container makes a sound.

It’s a pleasant sound. You can make sort of a rhythm to it, and I guess I was in a happy mood from the inauguration today, so I got caught up in the rhythm I was making by pouring out the onions.

Shh-sh-sh-sh-ssh-sh-s-s-s.

Catchy, isn’t it?

So yeah, after somewhere between thirty-seconds to a minute (way too long), I realized that I had equal parts chopped onion and eggs. These were the strongest scrambled eggs ever made.

But I’m a guy. I ate it anyway with tons of extra jelly to neutralize the onion. I’ll have to brush my teeth two more times in the morning to be able to go to work. It sufficed though.

Happy MLK Day!!

....otherwise known as National Tomorrow Obama's Going to Be President Day!

It's been a pretty good day today.

Properity Gospel

So, the other day, my sister and I were talking on the phone. I’ve applied to a couple of Ph.D programs, but of course, I’m not entirely sure that’s the direction I want to head next. You’ve just got to apply now to have that option later on. I’d called Kalyn to tell her about a semi-promising email I’d received from one of the schools.

Anyway, Kalyn got to reflecting on me moving somewhere, and she said, “I know this may sound slightly trite, but it’s true that when one of those big decisions comes around God seems to let you know where to go…”

That’s normal. But then, she finished.

“…with the money. He will just show you the money.”

I concurred: “Yep, that’s how it’s worked for you: Starve or move to Frisco. Starve or move to Kentucky.”

I think that’s when we both realized quite how horrible the conversation was, and we started laughing.

Me again: “You'd think we were people who listened to Joel Osteen.”

Reminder #41

I have a bad habit of vacuuming my living all of the time--and then neglecting to put up the vacuum cleaner. Yeah, that doesn't do me much good, does it?

My Favorite Books of 2008 (Slightly Late)

As is typical, the year of reading started out very quickly, especially since I was desperately searching for poetry and prose pieces, but slowed dramatically when I started the school year. This fall was extremely slow because I’ve been so busy (as is pretty evident from my lack of blogging). Still, I did read some pretty good books. Here is my top five ranking.

1. Walking to Martha's Vineyard - Franz Wright

This is a book of poetry that won the Pulitzer a couple of years back. It’s just absolutely fantastic—a series of brief, lyrical, sincere gems. I’ve never read anything quite like this, and Wright’s subject matter—his own redemption from depression and drug abuse—really struck a chord. A year after I first read it, this is the book from last year that I keep going back to.

2. Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise - Robert Inchausti

This book was fascinating as well. It was a pretty brief overview of the countercultural thought that key Christian thinkers have managed to articulate during the modern era. I’d heard of most of these people, and studied some of them, but it was pretty amazing to see how the work of people as diverse as Wendell Berry, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dorothy Day, Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Ellul, and Walker Percy ties together. And it’s amazing to me how their thought transcends and supersedes both the liberal and conservative narratives I hear so commonly.
3. Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke
I’d always heard of this one but never read it. Rilke’s mantra to ‘hold to the difficult,’ though, is so overwhelmingly life affirming. I’d think that anyone with an artistic sensibility—particularly an idealist or a person of faith—should find time to read this at some point.

4. The Crock of Gold - James Stephens

This was clearly the best novel I read of the year. It’s an old one and is extremely difficult to describe accurately. It’s based in Irish folklore, but there are plenty of elements that are certainly not from Irish folklore. The plots a little strange. The Philosopher creates quite a crisis when he inadvertently gives away the position of the leprechaun’s pot of gold. The leprechauns retaliate by framing the philosopher for murder and calling the cops. At the same time, the god Pan shows up in the village and seduces a young woman away from home. The philosopher decides to take off on his first journey from home and find her. Yes, and some people fall in love and some other people stay in love, and there are some fairies and children and poetry and magic and all sorts of things. It’s funny, and has the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. I clearly don’t know how to describe this book.

5. I Am One of You Forever - Fred Chappell

Fred Chappell is evidently the great North Carolinean author, and I happened across him while I was looking for southern prose. He’s just the best there is. I don’t know when I’ve read a funnier or more heartfelt book. This is the story of the author’s childhood, but it’s certainly not straightforward. There’s plenty of southern folklore and southern humor and magical realism thrown in. It was wonderful.