• Some significant time this weekend, when there will be other demands on my attention, to think about my manuscript, revise poems, and maybe even write a new one that I scribbled some lines for today in the car.
• A way to scribble poetry notes in the car, while moving, that does not feel dangerous.
• To make everyone read my new favorite blog about the Triangle, HowRDUdoin’?
• To go see Obama when he is in Raleigh tomorrow.  Doesn’t that count as work time?
• A couple hours in the afternoon tomorrow to prepare some things, so I am not up all night.
• My wife to come home from her trip to Columbia, SC, so that I won’t have that curious space next to me in the bed.
• An Obama victory in a couple days coupled with victories by people who will do good for our state and country, even if they aren’t the people I voted for.
• Not to be sick.  Or is it “to not be sick”?  I feel like I should not split the infinitive but the infinitive is begging to be split.
• The glasses I ordered from the Internet to hurry up and arrive.  I am going to look so swanky in my round specs.  Or not.  I honestly don’t know.  And for what I paid, if I look like doo-doo in them, I’m ok with that.  I’ll just order another style.
• A ratio above 4.  I’m at 3.97.
• An iPhone app that will allow me to turn Bluetooth on and off with one click, instead of having to go into the Settings and mess around.
• An iPhone app that will allow me turn wireless on and off with one click.
• A personal assistant or robot that will add my address to poems, write/personalize cover letters, address and stamp envelopes, and send my finished work to magazines.
• To see the final week of Super Sparkle Showcase.
• A crowd at trivia that is larger than the Facebook group for the trivia event.  (Whoa, five people joined today.)
• The Rays to come from behind.
• iTunes to stop freaking crashing on me.

Ahh, the North Carolina State Fair.  Fried foods, bad traffic, great people-watching, and… wait, what’s this?

Emily told me a couple of days ago that in the “Animals Made Out of Fruit” exhibit, she came across a fearsome sight.  Here it is, courtesy of her Flickr photostream:

My dear God!  Someone please stop this raptor before he rapes again! I bet he’s got himself one of those vegetable/mineral boom boxes and is listening to loud rape music.

Also a concern: his neck seems to be between his forelegs and hindlegs.

Also a concern: this animal/vegetable/sex criminal won an award!

This picture illustrates the need for more education dollars in more ways than I could reasonably elaborate upon in this space.

This comes from this morning’s Insider:

A Dunn teen has been cited in the slashing of tires on vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum during presidential candidate Barack Obama’s speech last week, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Monday. According to the news release, the slashings were a prank and the vandalism was “in no way politically motivated.” There had been speculation that the tires were slashed by local Obama opponents. Timothy Michael Strickland, 18, of the 8300 block of Norris Road in Dunn, faces 11 citations. An unnamed 15-year-old suspect is also under investigation for allegedly conspiring with Strickland to damage the vehicles, the release said. Strickland is scheduled to appear in Cumberland County District Court on Thursday. He is cited with willful injury to personal property. (THE FAYETTEVILLE OBSERVER, 10/27/08).

Following this story (which followed this one):

Seven Western Carolina University students dumped a dead bear cub draped in Barack Obama campaign signs on the campus earlier this week as a prank, according to authorities. Possible charges were being discussed with the local prosecutor, said Campus Police Chief Tom Johnson. Police did not release the students’ names. The students told authorities they took political signs at random to cover the bear’s wound and prevent blood from spilling into the bed of the truck they were driving.

They discovered a carcass of the cub, which had been shot in the head, while camping over the weekend and brought it back to a gathering at an apartment near campus Sunday night, according to a statement from the school. It was during that gathering, officials said, that a student suggested placing the bear at the base of a statue at the main entrance to the campus. Maintenance workers found the bear cub’s body early Monday morning near the school’s entrance. “I am pleased to hear that this situation appears to be a stupid prank,” Western Carolina chancellor John W. Bardo said. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/21/08).

Thank heavens!  All of these disgusting tactics were just kids being kids, and have nothing to do with politics.  Kids being kids is the most natural and American thing since Manny being Manny.  PLEASE MOVE ALONG.  THERE ARE NO ATTEMPTS AT VOTE SUPPRESSION TO SEE HERE.

Not now.  Not ever.

This is Bixby.  He is John and Jennifer’s dog.

This is Kirk. He is my cat. He thinks I am his cat.

Neither Bixby nor Kirk have anything to do with the Breeders.

… but crap like this makes me question sometimes how deep that devotion runs:

State wildlife officials and Western Carolina University campus police are investigating the discovery Monday of a dead bear cub draped with a pair of Barack Obama campaign signs. Leila Tvedt, associate vice chancellor for public relations, said Monday night that maintenance workers found the 75-pound bear cub shot to death around 7:45 a.m. in front of the school’s administration building at the entrance to the campus near N.C. 107. The Obama yard signs were stapled together and placed over the bear’s head, Tvedt said. The bear had been shot in the head, Tvedt said. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/20/08).

There’s just something wrong with behavior like that.  And the tire-slashing at Obama rallies.  And the physical assaults on members of the media at Palin rallies.  And while I know that there are going to be bad apples anywhere you live, there’s been enough small-minded, vicious behavior in North Carolina this election season to turn anybody’s stomach.

• Driving back from lunch with Pam Pate yesterday, I saw a campaign sign for Vernon Twinburger, with the slogan “Already Serving You” and a link to his blogspot.  The b&w drawing on the sign made it look like the dude had a very fake mustache.  So I checked out the blog to see if this was some viral thing, and sure enough, it’s a fake candidate with a very fake mustache.  The site is fairly lame– a couple videos (shot, as I found out from Ruby at Orange Politics, at Weaver Street, so the pranksters are local), but no real substance or lampoon.  But at the end of one of the videos, the voice says, “Vernon Twinburger is not campaigning for anything, because you’re already being served.”  Being served, indeed.  (The whole “you got served” thing would be more appropriate if the site had caused me to do anything other than waste two minutes on some YouTube videos.)
• My ability to work effectively is diminished by a factor of 12 for every hour of sleep under 7 that I get.  I slept about four and a half last night.  And somehow got dehydrated, even though I didn’t drink anything but water yesterday.  Like 20 gallons of it.  So I’ve spent most of the day getting rid of some of the more trivial, administrative things that I needed to do for, um, weeks.
• I swear to you, this campaign season is making me so tired.  I cannot stand it.  I cannot.  I just want to fast-forward now to November 4, cast my vote, and then sit back, drink a beer with friends, and watch CNN’s coverage of the widespread voter fraud and election-stealing.
• I got an iPhone app that allows me to upload photos to Flickr immediately after taking them, but have come to the realization that I don’t really have anything that I want to photograph.  I saw a bright orange ‘76 Mustang this morning and thought, “This could be my best chance to photograph something today.”  Hella lame, I tell you.

I will leave you with these thoughts from a friend who teaches elementary school:

1:17 PM I love being a kindergarten teacher: one of my boys just informed me that it took 3 dimes and 5 penises to make 35 cents

1:18 PM it’s the new math I guess

1:20 PM he then proceeded to tell me how his dad uses dollars because penises are hard to carry around

it took everything i had not to fall on the floor laughing hysterically

1:21 PM

my favorite one this week though is one of the boys very solemnly came up and asked me if I’d ever been in love

1:22 PM and whether it felt like a popsicle melting in your pants

1:25 PM

(following up on this post, which bemoaned the fact that I feel goal-less right now)

There’s one sure-fire way to tell when I’m not really happy at my job: I’m not reading Lifehacker.  I know that sounds totally geeky and lame, but it’s true.

Here’s why: I generally do a pretty good job of prioritizing my own professional development.  And I usually do a pretty good job of making sure that I’m getting at least a little bit of that development every day.  I don’t think the time I spend reading blogs like Lifehacker and dy/dan counts as goofing off, it counts as time that I am spending to keep connected to the profession.  (It’s kind of cool that I’m in a position where teachers’ blogs and business blogs are all part of the reading diet.)

But when my attention is divided between so many things that I feel like I am about to snap, my own development is the first thing to get sacrified.  Which, if you think about it, is really, really stupid.  My own development should be the last thing sacrificed, if I am constantly expected to do more and better.  (That expectation will be flawed after a certain point, I assure you, but I don’t think I am there yet.)

So, it was with a great deal of pleasure that I read Lifehacker today for the first time in almost a month (and immediately downloaded Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies app for the iPhone– Dan Winckler had told me about Oblique Strategies like a year ago, once again proving that Dan Winckler knows more than the rest of us do about everything).

Lifehacker is wonderful, because they take the time to write down things that are so obvious, then tell you why you aren’t doing this thing that you obviously should be doing.  This kind of appeal has particular rhetorical sway over me, I recognize that.  (And should put it into a poem.)  Today’s so obvious post is about goal-setting, and looks to be part of a series:  Goal Setting for Skeptics: Why You Should Risk Dweebhood with Written Goals.

Well, yes, duh.

Now, I just need to go about figuring out what I want.  And then, once it’s written down, I need to find a way to communicate that goal to others, both as a means of pursuing the goals and as a means of holding myself accountable and surrounding myself with supports.

This would all be so much easier if I knew what goals I would be happiest working towards.  (I suppose there is a comments section on this post, in case you are inclined to tell me what my goals are.)

I just ate the sticker off my granny smith apple.  Well, to be more precise, I just ate anout 3/4 of the sticker, and when I was taking the next bite, I saw the remaining bit.  So I didn’t eat the whole sticker.  But now I am left wondering which is more toxic– the pesticides no doubt used to make sure this delicious apple grew to be ginormous, or the sticker and its adhesive?  I mean, they have to consider that 1 in 10 dummies will just end up eating the sticker, right?

Michael Pollan wrote a tremendous pieces for the NYT Magazine this weekend: An Open Letter to Our Next Farmer-in-Chief.  In it, he argues that the American food system is deeply broken, and with the price of oil rising, in need of reform… soon.

It must be recognized that the current food system — characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table — is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific set of government policies that sponsored a shift from solar (and human) energy on the farm to fossil-fuel energy.

The piece lays out an agenda that includes not just reform of the government’s approach to agriculture (which should delight free-marketeers), but a prescription for better health (cutting back on plentiful corn and soy could mean limitations on cheap non-food derivatives like high fructose corn syrup) and some re-tooling of the educational system as well (taking a long hard look at agricultural/industrial education and how we promote certain careers).  This is the kind of thoughtful editorial that could spark some real discussion in a classroom– you could use it as-is for high-schoolers or adapt it for middle-schoolers.

So, yeah, Ladybug and I used to be Sprint customers, but when our service contract ended on Friday, we were ready to bail.  I’d been with them since 1998, during which time the customer service had gone from bad to worse.  (The low point was when they made us get two lines of service that we didn’t want or need.  Why two people would have four phone numbers is beyond me.)  So we’re now AT&T customers, and we have been playing with out phones pretty incessantly since picking them up yesterday.

That is about all I have to report.

Ladybug and I bought iPhones and man am I way too freakishly excited about it…

Looks like I am going to be talking poetry (and publishing) to high school students in Chapel Hill later this month, which is exciting.  I have recently been wondering about the viability of proposing a creative writing curriculum at a local STEM high school as an elective.  I mean, my plan so far has consisted of marching in and asking the principal if he would be interested in having me for one year as a volunteer to teach one morning class before I head in to work.  Yes, this is how much I a) want to be teaching creative writing, and b) want to be teaching high school students.  I think about this a lot, and I think I have some support from my boss in proposing it.  We’ll see if I can make it palatable to all parties.

I’m in Albemarle, NC this morning, getting ready to hop in the shower and then go talk to FBLA kids about online learning.  This is an event that I try to hit yearly, though now that I think about it, I don’t think I was able to make it down last year.

Thompson and I went over to Lake Badin yesterday when I got here, and just tooled around on his boat for about three hours.  He tried to do a little bit of fishing, but mostly we rolled around the lake from dam to dam.  He knew the stories behind most of the really grand houses on the lake– who lived there, how they made their fortunes, who blasted their country music on Saturdays.  Later on, we got on our laptops and watched Monday Night Football.  Despite having bragged about attending many a trivia night– and winning some– in Charlotte, Thompson failed to present even one trivia question that I could use tomorrow night.  (Sadly, participants will be stuck with more of the same kinds of questions I usually ask.)

We talked on the lake about the Thompsons’ goals for five and ten years down the road, and I started thinking about the fact that I haven’t quite set any of those goals for myself.  I’ve been enjoying where I am, sure, but I had something ahead of me for so long, and just recently, I don’t.  I go back and forth about publishing my own work (a side of poetry that I don’t really care about), I go back and forth about how and when I want to pursue getting back into teaching (so I guess I do sort of have a goal, I just don’t really know how I want to pursue it).  I’m happy in my current job but hit my tenth year there in September; I think I could do it for five more years but after that I feel like I probably ought to leave just to see what else is out there.

Driving through Siler City on the way here, I noticed that probably 1/3 of the retail spaces were empty.  I’ve been hearing how bad the economy is but all that dread has seemed like something in the future, somehow.  Not when you drive through a community like Siler City that has been crippled by our current economic conditions.  It made me think long and hard about running for local office one day; I’m not the greatest mind in the world, but I think I could do some good.

I may have some goals before too long.

I miss @tweettales.

I really need to give up the pretense that this blog now centers entirely on poetry and go back to using it for what I used it for from 2002-2006: whatever.  I bailed on blogging about my real life in 2006 when I left the DSI Theater, mostly because I was angry about a lot of things (some theater-related, most not) and didn’t want the friends who had come to be daily readers to have access to that anger.  I didn’t want anyone to share that anger or hear my side of the story without hearing someone else’s.

That doesn’t mean I’m going back to honest-to-goodness, all-out venting like I did in the olden days.  Man, I kinda miss that.  But let’s be honest: my name is on this blog, so if I start saying things like “My asshat co-worker x did this…” there’s a damn fine chance someone will see that, like maybe asshat co-worker x.  I do miss being able to do that kind of thing, but I had to knock it off when I stopped blogging on the IRC and when I got to a point in my career where I realized that perhaps badmouthing someone on your blog makes you as much of an asshat as you think they are.

I also decided– and this one will probably be harder to self-enforce– that I need to go back to using Flickr.  Images communicate a great deal.

Also: it’s my anniversary.  Cool.

Just discovered that when I moved from Movable Type to WordPress, a number of entries were severely truncated.  So basically, it’s like finding out someone came in and erased the last half of a bunch of entries on my diary.  Only it’s on the interwebs.