Verbosity

Before I started teaching, I spoke to a friend who had just taken on her first classes and she told me that she was amazed how much she could talk when she had to. I have thought of this many times in my own classes and it really is amazing! But I generally pride myself on being both thorough and concise, both in my career and in my personal life. I’m not one to babble on and on, and I’m generally pretty good at reading my audience. But lately, something has changed.

In the past few weeks, I have found myself at a loss for the exact words I wanted, especially when ordering food. I’m not sure why, but it has been painfully obvious. It started when I walked into our local Q-doba and spent a good minute trying to explain that I wanted a “naked bowl” with black beans and steak, something that should have taken about 5 seconds. I blamed this on the newness of the business (at least locally) and their recent addition of a true label for the product I desired. But then it happened again. At Togos, I got confused in the moment of the order and asked for the wrong thing. And lest you think the streak was over, it happened again. This time, we were out at a local steakhouse for my mother-in-law’s birthday. It’s a great place that serves up monstrous baked potatoes with your choice of any or all of their toppings: butter, sour cream, chives and bacon. I wanted to say, “no butter, but extra sour cream and bacon.” But again I ended up mixing words, confusing the poor waitress and becoming the brunt of jokes for the rest of the meal (and afterwards, from my loving husband). And when I finally thought I had it all figured out, it happened yet again. This time, my husband and I were at The Habit with a friend. This botched order was so bad I don’t even remember what I said. Luckily, all of our servers have been excellent… and patient… and I’ve ended up with exactly what I wanted in the first place.

But don’t think this story is over. As we sat down to eat our meals at The Habit, my husband brought up my verbal stumblings. Now, I can be a little excitable and that’s when the Italian in me comes out - I use my hands and really get into my story. That’s what good storytellers do, right? So I began to share an overview of my food-related follies to our friend. We were all laughing, my husband was adding to my story and our friend was asking questions. It was at this moment that I realized the patio where we were seated was a little quieter than before, so I looked around. There was a table of guys sitting to my left and they had all turned around with their eyes fixed on our table. We made eye contact, I chuckled a little and we all went back to our respective conversations. I’ll never know if it was my storytelling, our laughter or my lively hand gestures, but we had clearly attracted more attention that I had intended. Hopefully, they were simply enjoying a laugh with me, albeit at my expense, but that’s the risk you take when you open your yap about your inability to close it.

Smokin'

Last night, I decided to BBQ for dinner. While I prepped the corn, Brian went out to set up the grill, which included adding a fresh batch of wood chips to our little smoker box. I thought nothing of this, as we’ve smoked things before. So, I throw on the meat and veggies, set my timer and throw the Frisbee for the dogs until it’s time for the meal’s first rotation. But when I open up the cover, I am flooded by a wave of smoke. My eyes are burning and I’m blinking frantically to restore myself and get back to the task at hand. This repeats until the food is ready.

After dinner, I get a bee in my bonnet to go pick up something at Toys-R-Us, so we head out. But now I realize that I reek. It smells like I was doused in liquid smoke and I share this news with Brian. I exclaim, “Man! I stink!” To which he responds, “No, you smell like smoke. It’s delicious.” I retort, “I don’t want to smell like smoke. I’m going to make people hungry! And if I can smell myself, the smell must be really bad.” This type of dialogue continues intermittently throughout our shopping trip. Sometimes, it’s simply my own musings about how bad I smell, but often Brian chimes in to reassure me that it’s not that bad. But I know he’s wrong.

We then go to check out. After I exchange a few pleasantries with the cashier, she immediately turns to her coworker and asks, “What’s that smell?” Then she looks at me with imploring eyes. I ask, “Does it smell like smoke?” And she says, “Yeah, it kind of does.” With a sheepish grin, I open my yap and say, “Yeah, that’s me. Sorry.” I briefly explain the whole smoke-gets-in-my-eyes grilling experience and, although she’s polite about it, I can see that guilt-ridden expression one gets when they ask a woman when she’s due only to discover she’s not pregnant. It’s like my life has turned into a sitcom. Awkward.

When we finally walk out the door, I start chuckling. I can’t help it. I turn to Brian and say, “I told you I smelled bad! That poor woman!” He maintained his stance that I smelled delicious, but I couldn’t take it any more. I tried to simply strip off the smoke-infested clothes, but it wasn’t enough. A shower was in order, but even after the scrubbing, I continued to catch faint whiffs of smoke throughout the evening. Now, two showers later, I think I have finally cleansed myself of the stench. I’m all for being smokin’, but next time I think I’ll leave the literal smoke behind.

History

I recently posted about my student’s lack of motivation and shortened attention span, but I have my own confession to make. I, too, was a horrible student in high school. Gasp! I know. Take it in. There were a great many subjects I couldn’t have cared less about, but my least favorites had to do with history and politics. Now, I know I’m not alone on this one, but, nonetheless, I am still embarrassed to admit it. I, like so many other ill educated people, have responses to political issues or historical events, but I can’t contextualize them and articulate with sound logical reasoning why I have these particular views. This is something that, I strongly believe, is at the root of much of our poor decision-making here in the good ‘ol US of A. We feel entitled to our opinion, yet we have nothing with which to legitimately back it up. Many of us simply do not understand the bigger picture. So, up until now, I have eked by. I kept my opinions to myself, which is very easy in classes where students believe they must adhere to the teacher’s tenets and ideals. I simply abstained from sharing and played the devil’s advocate on everything. But that doesn’t work in my “real” life, nor does it work with colleagues. So I have made a decision.

Yesterday, I began my quest for historical enlightenment. (Politics will come later. I need one goal at a time, people!) It is quite an undertaking, I must say, because I don’t have any kind of foundation of knowledge – no ground zero with which to start. So, I have begun watching a documentary by my husband’s favorite documentation, Simon Schama, called The American Future: A History, and I am fervently trying to retain everything within it. I have also placed a reoccurring note on my Errands list to read something currently or historically relevant every day. Yesterday, I read two (yes, two) articles in The Economist before starting my day. It felt good to know I’ve gotten off on the right foot (my second time around) but I know I didn’t get the full extent of the content. But I guess it’s a start. It’s ironic, really. I spend most of my working hours trying to give students their ground zero in the composition world. To help them to understand why we need to know the bigger picture in order to write and yet, over the years, I’ve opted out of this same message in one very substantial area of my own life. Now, it’s my time to change. I will take my own advice, learn the conversation and gain more confidence in the meantime so that the next time I open my yap, what comes out will not only represent my opinion, but the socio-historical context within which it lies and my ignorance will be… history.

Obsession

I’m going to warn you right up front. This story has no moral. Normally, I have some deeper purpose for sharing my stories, but not today. In fact, it doesn’t even involve a verbal faux pas. I just found it funny.

If you have ever met our dogs, you’ll know they’re the cutest (and orneriest) dogs you’ve ever met. In fact, one might call them a pair of royal pains in the ass. (Literally and figuratively. They are the dog of the queen, you know.) Our female has serious attitude, but our male has a serious obsession: play. I have never met a dog with more energy than Bones. To help you understand the scope of his obsession, this short-legged Corgi walked six miles with me on moderately hilly terrain in 80+ degree weather, ate a few pieces of ice (his other obsession) and dropped a ball at my husband’s feet. It’s a problem, I tell you. Well, Corgis were bred to be herding dogs, so my mom bought them each a stuffed sheep (affectionately dubbed “sheepins”) for Christmas and they have been obsessed with them ever since.

Now, if you’ve ever seen a sheep – I mean a real Highlands of Scotland-style sheep – they’re pretty dirty. They are in no way the cute, snowy creatures of fluff we make them out to be. Well, ours quickly came to mirror their real-life counterparts. It was disgusting. Truly disgusting. But, like children, our dogs clearly have their favorites and instead of replacing them, we have endured… until today. It was time. Bath time, that is!

So, after much scrubbing, whining (from Bones, not me), squeezing, mending (they are the holiest sheep I’ve ever seen) and rinsing, both “sheepins” have been upgraded and are currently bouncing around in the drier. And the dogs? Well, Maya doesn’t seem to care, but Bones has stationed himself at the door to our garage (where the washer and drier live) until his dearly beloved sheep emerge, new once more, from their appropriately titled “fluff” cycle.

Then, let the obsession resume!

Show Me

I am generally a very patient person, but this month I have been working three jobs: two part time and one full time. I have to admit it has tried my patience. Not only has my workload grown exponentially, I’ve been reading reflective essays about what my students have learned this semester. These letters are often encouraging, but this semester, more than most, my students wrote repeatedly of how they came to this class expecting to learn nothing and, thank God, they were mistaken. The teacher (yeah, that’d be me) actually knew what she was talking about and things like revisions, workshops and active reading actually helped. Gasp.

Now, this is a compliment. For whatever reason – blame the inadequacies of our educational system or student’s lack of focus in the classroom – most of my students have woeful tales of past English classes and I am happy to change that perspective. But this constant barrage of blatant surprise does wear on a person.

It was in this mindset that I entered my afternoon class today. These are students at my new full time job and I’m enjoying the campus, but this specific class is sleepy and generally unresponsive to anything class related. So after 1 1/2 hours of tedious stop-and-go conversion, I sent them on a break to get refreshed. It worked, but then the questions were all about when class would be over. Now, on Tuesday, these students had asked me (yes, I swear they asked) to go over grammar before their essay was due, so that was the plan. I admit, it’s not exciting, but they requested it. But now, they hated it. They avoided eye contact, wouldn’t answer questions and kept asking if we were done. Then, something in me snapped. I couldn’t keep my yap shut any longer. I broke into a rant. “Why are you even in school if all you want to do is leave? Why pay all this money to bitch and stare at the clock?” On and on I went. After the shock wore off, this surprisingly opened up an interesting line of discussion. They talked about the frustration of working full time making only minimum wage and how school was so much better. I challenged them to show it. Show me. Show everyone.

I’d like to say that everything changed, but this is reality. We did, however, have an interesting discussion about the grammatical structure of a few sentences and that was enough for me. And I know that, when I see them again next Tuesday, they will be sleepy and sluggish, but I think we may have broken ground on something helpful and maybe, just maybe, we can revisit it and keep them focused on the means to their end. And maybe the next time I open my yap with them, it will be praise and excitement, not a searing rant about the value of their education. Maybe, just maybe.

Purpose

Recently, my husband and I have been talking about motivation. I have struggled with depression in the past and my husband, although never officially diagnosed, believes he probably has as well. If you have never suffered from depression, you can’t fully understand it. You may try, but you will never truly know why a depressed loved one simply can’t get out of bed. Why the motivation just isn’t there. You think, “snap yourself out of it. Just get up!” If only it were that simple. But the funny thing about depression is that it has a permanent affect on your life. I don’t mean that you constantly struggle with it (although some poor souls do). What I mean is that your life – your motivation – is constantly in question. You constantly ask yourself why you aren’t motivated to do something. Is it just a lazy day or is it more? The line gets fuzzier and fuzzier until you start blaming everything on depression, “It can’t be me. I must be slipping back into that darkness”, you tell yourself. But now I’m questioning that mindset.

Just last weekend, we hosted my dad and step-mom as they visited California. One morning over breakfast, my step-mom began speaking of her mother. How her health has gone downhill lately. How she believes her mom has lost her purpose. She told me, “once you lose your purpose, there’s not much to stick around for.”  This really hit me. What is my purpose? So often, I find myself stuck in a routine and even more often, I find myself wishing for time to pass faster so that I can obtain some goal that’s just out of reach. Some of this is because, up through April, I’ve been on a paycheck-to-paycheck mentality. (I have a new full time job coming up. Yup, something else to want that’s just up ahead.) But I truly believe there’s more to it than that. I allow myself to get overwhelmed with the day-to-day and I don’t spend time doing what makes me happy – really happy. Not that I’m-home-from-work-and-want-to-veg-don’t-bother-me kind of happy. The stuff that makes me feel like a better person – like I’m living the way I hoped adult me would live when I was a kid. So that is my goal. I can’t tell you exactly how this will manifest itself, but my plan is to do at least one thing every day that makes me happy. And you know what? Blogging – simply writing down my thoughts – is one of those things. This means there hopefully won’t be any more weeks or months of emptiness on my site. I also hope to be able to share more about my experiment with you as I pursue it, so please check back and feel free to ask questions. One of the many benefits to yapping about life is that some people need to hear what you have to say. I would be honored if any word that I write (past, present or future) helps any person with just one thing. Perhaps this will be it.

Until next time, here is me checking off my first happy thing! And you know what? It feels pretty good. 

Eloquent Evolution

Just finished walking 60 miles in 2008!

This blog is dedicated to the women (and men) who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, a cause that is close to my own heart.

It’s pretty common knowledge that women talk more than men. Whether this is somehow ingrained in our DNA or if it’s socially constructed, I don’t know, but there is enough research to prove that it is truth. I suppose that’s part of how my blog came to be. But I think there’s a deeper reason than we admit for this desire to talk.

I recently watched a documentary called Dogs Decoded: Nova. You may be wondering right now what dogs have to do with women. I’ll tell you. According to this incredible documentary, dogs have developed the amazing ability to read human’s facial expressions over their years of domestication. This is something that has not been found in any other animal – not even the chimp. This has allowed for dogs to truly become man’s (or women’s) best friend. In order to survive and belong in this new social order, dogs adapted. I think women have, too.

If you’re unfamiliar with gender roles in European societies (actually, many societies, but there are a few who are matriarchal) women have only recently been considered equals with men. (That is actually still quite arguable, but I digress.) In Victorian society, women were not even allowed outside of their homes without a chaperone. They were property. They, in essence, were nothing but the means to create children – ideally, sons. Gossip channels were very important then through the courts and I’m sure they were even more important if you go further back into history. But because women have generally played a submissive role to men, they needed a system in order to cope and make themselves present. Hence, women talk a lot.

This was brought to the forefront of my attention not long ago when I accompanied my mom for a test at a breast center. I was able to join her in a small waiting room where other women in unflattering gowns that make them feel self-conscious sat awaiting a test that may tell them they have breast cancer. In my family, the women talk even more when they are nervous. More specifically, they joke. This is precisely what my mom and I were doing until she was taken for her mammogram. While she was away, I sat typing responses to student essays on my laptop, trying to look occupied. One woman looked nervous and I smiled at her, but she remained deep in thought and moved carefully, I could see, to avoid her pain. But several other women joined and they were less than silent. One specifically felt the need to talk about her experience, and my mom’s experience, and anyone else’s experience we could share. At first, I’ll admit, I was a little annoyed. I had papers to read and really did want to be productive, but I saw how much this meant to this woman. She, unlike my mom, was alone and she had a history of breast cancer in her family. It was as if talking made the situation more bearable for her – made it more tangible, so she could hold it and control it herself. And so we chatted – something so many people would shrug off as idle and insignificant, but I realized at that moment that it was probably the most meaningful thing I was going to do that day, possibly even that week. So I closed my laptop and kept chatting with this woman and then the next, until I was alone in the little room.

It was then that I began writing this blog. I couldn’t go back to my work. I realized there was something here and, although I would probably never see these women again, I needed to continue their conversation in some way to acknowledge its importance. That, in some small way, my writing was helping us to adapt our own communication and survival. So here it is, my contribution to the evolution of eloquent gab, and yet another reason to never shut your yap.