Exhausted
Plodded through the day
It’s spring break
but
my spring broke
two long years ago
I need sleep
Spring Broke
Tag: SOLSC22
One Weird Thing
I subscribe to a magazine. Yeah, those things that come in the mail you can read in a sitting or two without having to pay too much attention. What social media used to be, except it took longer to get it. I’ve always enjoyed those little random questions that sometimes make up a regular section.
The editorial staff responds to this month’s question: What is one weird thing you always carry with you?
How would I answer this? For starters, I would say “It depends on where I’m going, but if it’s always, then it wouldn’t be dependent on where I’m going.” And there Alice goes, down the rabbit hole of possibilities. I suppose I don’t have anything weird I always carry with me.
Work badge. Doesn’t count. Only at work.
Lip balm. Doesn’t count, I don’t always take my purse.
Oh, for crying out loud, just answer the question. Generally speaking. No one is checking. There is no test. No wrong answer. It’s just a question to get conversation going. To get the brain thinking. How weird are you? Don’t get so dang technical!
If I was a brave and cool type of person, I’d say tattoos. But I don’t have tattoos. But are they weird? I don’t think so. I do know I’d never get one not because I’m afraid of needles, but because I’m so indecisive about choosing one. Apparently I don’t want one badly enough.
Okay, one weird thing, one weird thing, one weird thing.
Gum. Doesn’t count. Not weird.
Water. Doesn’t count. Necessary.
My phone. Doesn’t count. Too normal.
A notebook. Doesn’t count. I’m too old to completely depend on tech.
But what constitutes weird? Unique, maybe? Odd? If I always carry something odd, then it would be odd rather than weird, unless it’s the same thing. Do NOT look it up to check for nuance. The word was weird. The question is what’s one weird thing you always carry?
It’s that picky little word, always that’s getting me. Ignore it. But it says always. Ignore it anyway. If you were on the editorial staff, what would you say?
Ignoring the word always, editing the question, and replacing it with frequently, I have my answer(s).
A teal pencil case full of a variety of colored pens, ranging from ball point to felt-tipped.
A carved olive wood heart my mom brought me from the Holy Land.
A tin full of glittery blue Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty.
A small notebook titled Get Off Your Apps.
I can’t come up with one answer. (This is almost as nerve-racking as choosing the annual OLW-one little word.) Once I got to thinking about it, I mentally emptied the contents of my bag. Now I have to put everything back, resisting the urge to get up and look at what I do have that I might have forgotten.
Are these weird? I don’t know.
What is something weird you always carry? Avoid over-analyzing the question. I already did that for you.
The Story Keeper: Part II
As I worked with a small group of students using the button maker, another student came in, hunting me down. What’s so urgent?
“Mrs. Garza! I have to show you this!”
She holds a folded red bandana. Usually students either show me their own copies of a book I recently added to our collection. A published piece of writing from language arts class. A LEGO mini-figure. A new mani. A second ear piercing.
Walking toward the desk, she slowly unwrapped the bandana. “Look what I have. I need to be careful or it’ll break. It’s over a hundred years old.” Leaving the bandana on the table, she cradled it. A book, but not one I recently added to the collection. It was old. Over a hundred years old. A yellow envelope peeked out from underneath the front cover. I almost didn’t want to touch it, but I couldn’t wait to hold it.
Leather. Old leather, with pieces so worn they had fallen off. I needed gloves to handle it and here she was, brining it to school wrapped in a bandana and plopped into a backpack. Our new library bound books can barely take the brunt of a middle schooler’s backpack. “Where…”
“I got it at a garage sale! The lady gave it to me. I didn’t even have to pay for it. She said it belonged to her grandfather.” Another story about an hour after the previous grandfather story. Must’ve been National Grandfathers Leave Something Special to a Loved One Day and I didn’t get the memo. “Look at the letter!” she exclaims excitedly. “It has actual writing from the 1800’s.” Definitely an artifact because it’s actual writing. Opening the cover, she explains how the page had fallen out, or rather, broken out. There it was, a note with actual writing on it.
I tried not to gasp. I’m not sure if the book is worth anything, but the page was glued onto a sheet of paper which was glued onto an envelope. Yikes! I’m not an archivist, but this one may or may not be worth taking to an archivist. Wanting to check the publication date, I tried to open the next page to find information. It was too brittle. Not wanting to damage it, I opened pages that wanted to be opened. The print is still in decent condition.
I imagine I would’ve fallen in love with this book had I been able to see it back in the 1800s. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. I saved the title for last. A book of poems by John Milton. I spoke a little of what I remember about John Milton, which isn’t much, and his famous Paradise Lost. I asked for permission to take pictures. I suggested she check into having an expert take a look at it. What thrilled her most was the note written inside and the fact she got it free. At a garage sale.
This was a second story to add to my collection in the same day. My campus was without a librarian last year and library activities halted. It’s taken me a while to get the flow of it, get to know the teachers, and get to know the students. They are coming in more frequently now, teachers and students. And they’re sharing their stories with me. Even if they were free from a garage sale. I call that a win.
Building Creative Stromboli
“…a calzone is like a taco and a stromboli is like a burrito. Tacos and calzones are always folded. Burritos and calzones are always rolled.”
from bon appètit, “What’s the Difference Between a Calzone and a Stromboli?” by Alex Delaney
I scroll through my Notes app and find this gem. Building Creative Stromboli. I open the note and find that I had made a note to self: It really was “Building creative stamina” 🤣. But what was it that made me write such words? Was I listening to a podcast while on my afternoon walk or in the middle of cooking dinner, but most likely not stromboli? Brenè Brown? Did it come from her? Did she say this or did she make a reference to something? Is it a book title? Is it something I want to do or am curious about doing?
Note to self: Take better notes. My phone autocorrected the original snippet of whatever my brain needed, but this time, I like the correction. Makes me think. Either way, what am I doing to build creative stamina? What is it? This SOLSC where I write for 31 days? To top it off, I’m a late night slicer (shout out to all you night owls!) so getting to my computer at the end of the day, every day for a month certainly builds those writing muscles. But I tend to get cramps. Aha! I should order a calzone or stromboli or both to get me through it.
If I’m to build creative stamina, could it mean that I need to do something besides writing? Should I make my own pizza dough (I found a great recipe I frequently use) divide it half and make a calzone for dinner one night and save the other for stromboli? Kneading dough by hand is cathartic, unleashing new ideas through the push, fold, turn, push, fold, turn motion for a good ten minutes the recipe suggests. I have about an hour to myself while the dough rises, but that usually isn’t enough for me to switch over to writing which will soon be interrupted with pizza making.
That’s as far as I’ve taken it. That dough can become any kind of pizza, but I have yet to lead it to become a calzone or stromboli. I don’t know why. I’m stuck with my favored Neapolitan style pizza because I’m a creature of habit and when I get comfortable, I don’t like to explore much.
I’ve been reading about creativity for a few years. My favorites: The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron; Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon; Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. One of the ideas that keeps getting repeated is to do something else besides [insert your creative endeavor here.] To get better at writing, I need to do something other than writing. Not all of the time, of course, but when feeling stuck-making pizza dough and only making pizza-do something else. Make a calzone. Make stromboli. Or tacos. Or burritos. Play with clay and then watch it break, like I wrote about here a few weeks ago for a Tuesday Slice.
A Google search for “building creative stamina” will tell you a lot of the same things in a lot of different ways. One thing I’ve learned is to let that creativity out, even if it isn’t great. It’s better for those ideas to come out to play. Ever watch a kindergartener draw or paint a picture? They don’t care how it looks, they care about the process. They get into the zone. Like kneading pizza dough. The end result may be good, but releasing those creative bubbles is the point.
Calzones and stromboli are the culinary bonuses for late night writing sessions. Roll with it.
Stories That Move Too Fast
Stories have changed. I listened to stories my grandmother told me. Family stories, but stories nonetheless. Words crafted through inflection, intonation, pauses, unique voices, language-Spanish for us, and sometimes even songs. Words held in the air after they’ve been spoken as they traveled to listening ears. Some documented, but most absorbed into memory either to be retold or forgotten.
Stories have changed. I enjoy lingering over the words in a book, connecting with authors I’ll never meet and those who have long been gone. It’s an intimate space, those pages of a book, where writers pour out their creativity and share vulnerability through their characters and finely crafted thoughts through words. Perhaps some stories happened or they are inventions of things that wish to have happened, wandering all of the places in the world where readers will find them.
Stories have changed. We once waited a week between episodes of favorite TV shows, anticipating what’s to come, figuring out plot twists and who-done-its. Now we can gorge ourselves on Netflix series throughout a weekend, but is it any different than reading a book cover to cover in a day?
Stories have changed. What once was a well captioned Instagram photo or Facebook post is now “too long” for us to read. Use less words, but lots of hashtags. How does that even make sense? We have to post to stories that disappear in a day. What do we put there that makes us want it to disappear?
Stories are moving too fast-the ones that are run by algorithms at least. I need time to think about what I’m reading. I like time between TV shows. (Is it even called TV anymore?) I’ve always been a slow reader, so maybe it’s just me who has a problem having to press my finger on a digital story so I can take in the content. Lives are flashing too fast before my eyes and it feels as if, in the age of being connected, I’m losing connectivity. Is it because I’m older? Is it because I like to take my time and don’t feel like I can ever catch up? I can’t figure it out.
It’s exciting to see how things change, but stories, they still connect us. We still share them. And I think they’re too important to shorten for the sake of scrolling.
Piñata
soy una piñata
llena de alegría y deseos dulces ¡ dale, dale, dale, rompe la piñata ¡ uno, dos, tres, zas y pum, zas y pum doy más, y más, y más ya no tengo ¡ ayudame ¡
I am a piñata
full of joy and sweet wishes go ahead, go ahead, go ahead! tear the piñata one, two, three zas and pum, zas and pum, zas and pum I give more and more and more I have no more [to give] help!
Retro Library Badges
I’m so nerdy, subscribe to a sticker club. It’s like an ’80s sticker store, but in the mail. I purchased a year’s subscription for my mini-me two years ago as a birthday gift. I didn’t cancel the subscription, but decided to gift it to myself. Plus they offer a teacher discount, so how can I cancel? I’ve been hoarding stickers ever since. I don’t want to use them, but I totally need to use them. I have no business buying a sticker album either. Yes, they sell those too.
Every month, I receive a shiny holographic envelope with another sparkly zippered pouch packed with stickers. Oh happy day, snail mail, my favorite! I’m sure I can repurpose the envelopes, so I hoard them along with my stickers.
Last week, I received a badge machine I ordered for our library’s maker space. Bingo! I packed up my sticker stash and envelopes. I’ve never used one, so it was time to play. I cut out circles from the envelopes and the front page of the ‘zine that comes with each pack. The covers have fun prints, so I read them, rip the cover, and save them along with everything else.
After several failed attempts at making a badge and before deciding to send it back, reading the directions might help. I left out the important metal base. Went back to try again and alas, awesome, shiny, 80s style buttons. I decided to make a few for students to see if they’d like them. I wasn’t sure if they’d go over well. My idea of cool stuff is not their idea of cool stuff. Once spotted though, our regulars all wanted one.
Taking it a step further, I decided to make some donning the covers of popular books. The backgrounds aren’t shiny because we print them out, but sure enough, students are looking for their favorite titles. My library assistant made a template so all we have to do is place the image of the book cover on the circle templates, print, and cut them out. We have books on the 2022 Texas Lone Star Reading List ready to print. One of our student aides has learned how to make them and the task is now hers to supervise others.
I’m hoping these will motivate students to read. Even if they don’t, it will bring them through our doors so we can have a little bonding time, chatting. About books. Or stickers. Or about what it was like growing up in the 80s. (Hello, primary source, here.) And they’ll leave with a mark of library coolness.
Flashback to the ’80s
Two students came in this morning to print flyers they made for next week’s Spirit Week, kicking off spring break ’22 (is it really that time already?). One of them is a student library helper that has taken on the task of checking out books to students so we can work on more pressing issues. Like making sure no one tries to bite a Chromebook. True story, but not under my watch.
One of the scheduled spirit days is “Dress as Your Favorite Decade.” They asked if I’d be participating. “Heck yes! Totally the 80s for me.” Then I began reminiscing. They asked what it was like and how I dressed. My answer? Pretty much like I do now, except everything was neon. Big hoop earrings. Side pony tails. Leg warmers. Fingerless gloves. Rectangular sunglasses. Rubber bracelets stacked from wrist to elbow. Miami Vice jackets with huge shoulder pads.
Miami Vice…my celebrity crush was Don Johnson, among many others. “Ooh, Ms. Garza, was he cute?” They proceeded to Google him. “No! Not yet! You can’t Google the Don Johnson now. You have to search for the 80s Miami Vice Don Johnson, they won’t look the same. Don’t do it!”
Too late. They give each other an odd look. Sure enough, it’s not the Miami Vice Don Johnson. We dig a little deeper and find one of Crockett and Tubbs donning their signature pastel t-shirt and suit combos. Sigh… “I know, he was way too old for me.” My library assistant chimes in, “But if it’s a celebrity crush, it doesn’t matter.” I mull it over. “True, but look at him now, ewww! It’s just ewww! He’s old enough to be my dad! Gross!” They agreed without having to agree with me. “Okay Ms. Garza, we’re going to come check out your outfit.”
“The flyer says you’re giving out candy if people participate. I’m totally going to get some candy!”
I print their flyers. We chat a little more about how we plan to dress up and other 80s celebrity crushes. For about ten minutes I was 13 again, swooning over a Google search instead of a poster in Teen Beat magazine.
Nerds Beget Nerds 