Reiterative

Learning again that too much is not enough. Too much is not enough. Too much is not enough.

Srsly.

L

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, Bruce! Here's hoping today's festivities mark a year of happiness, fun, and laughter to come.

love,
Leslie
and
Zak

So glad that's over

The site visit was overall a success. And we finished homicide free: a bonus!

Now back to my regularly scheduled chaos.

L

Poetry Isn't Commonplace

But my blog is. From Apostrophes VI: open the grass.

Whatever you have held —
not roses but the air that they exhale that is a breath inside
your breath — that is the hush that rises there, the sound of it the sound
of nakedness and nothing more, every moment of a life
surrendered then, the asking that is in the light, the stance of trees,
not asking but the what of what we are, birds turning at night.

— E.D. Blodgett, "Turning"

Saturday Poetry

Because no-one can mark for twelve hours in a row!

There are three kinds of teachers, you said.
One who teaches by making you afraid,
one who makes you angry.
The third makes you love him.

— Anne Michaels, "The Day of Jack Chambers"

Eleven Things

This evening I gave my Creative Nonfiction students a very difficult exercise: to write two pages of concrete or demonstrable facts about their individual pasts. I generally try the exercises I ask my students to do, but haven't had time to do many of the exercises for this course. Tonight I thought I'd give this one a go. Here are my first eleven facts.

• I was born in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

• My maternal grandfather was Scottish and was a fur factor for the Hudson's Bay Company.

• My maternal grandmother was French-Canadian and was a nurse in Manitoba.

• I have one sibling, a brother, who is younger than I am.

• I once learned the entire libretto of "The Pirates of Penzance" by memory.

• My first hamster was named Maurice, after one of the Bee Gees. The hamster was female. I didn't listen to the Bee Gees.

• I was once given detention for writing a personalized verse of the camp song "At the Quartermaster's Store" for each member of my Grade 6 class. I ran into trouble for rhyming with Chris with piss.

• My son was born in the Misericordia Hospital, directly across the street from West Edmonton Mall.

• I learned to slam dance on a choir trip to Saskatoon.

• The first CD I owned was Prince's "Purple Rain". I still have it.

• My first radio was a hand-me-down. It was pink. I no longer have it.

You probably think it's easy to make a list like this. Not so! Give it a try -- and then share it with me!

L

Because I want to remember this

Hello hello,

Such a long time since I've written. But time is beginning to resume its regular course again. In the meantime...

"The hand is a much more reliable and durable instrument than anything that has yet been proposed to replace it." — Robert Bringhurst, January 2010

L