Memoir Meme

I was tagged by K8 to play along with this viral activity / meme . I'm not sure what I think about the concept, but this one looked pretty harmless. It also allows for a bit of creativity exploration for the participants.

Here are the rules (cut from the original post):

1.. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like (mine is at the end of this post).

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.

4 .Tag five more blogs with links.

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Keep in mind a memoir doesn't have to encompass one's entire life story. It can be a slice of one's life. Here's my current slice:

Displaced
teacher
anxiously
awaits
August's
arrival.

The Project -- Part II

The wall project is complete. Part III -- The next step...that insipid border around the rest of the dining room needs removal. It's going to be a longer project because I have to move furniture. I'll do one piece at a time. Part IV -- Painting the rest of the dining room (an Ivory shade) and then the same for the living room. The ceiling patch will be last. I have to figure out how to do that effectively without tearing down all the plaster. I have until the end of June to get it all finished.


The girls, of course, would rather I focused my attention on them. Sigh.

Great Book

I stayed up late last night to finish Alan Lawrence Sitomer's Hip-Hop High School. It's an awesome young adult read. Compelling narrative, strong female voice, authentic glimpse into urban high school life. The main character,Tee-Ay (Theresa), struggles with a changing neighborhood, cultural conflicts, romantic roadblocks, violence, sibling competition, tough teachers, college entrance requirements, and her own ideology/life purpose development. Sitomer presents a wonderfully resilient voice couched in a plotline that will make you laugh and cry simultaneously in the end.

Check it out!

*

The Project

Since it is Spring Break, and I have been cursing the wallpaper in my dining room for almost 7 full years, I decided to finally rid my world of the ugly stuff. It has always been my belief that individuals should not be allowed to install wallpaper (ANYWHERE!) until they have gone through the agony of tearing it down. All three of the bedrooms and the dining room had wallpaper when I bought my house. Uggghhhh. In the first two years of home ownership, my spring break/summer projects involved the wallpaper teardowns and repaints. And let me tell you, those vacation time periods were consumed by the projects. Then I took a year off from the removal agenda and came back to it with the third bedroom. Well, then work and graduate school took priority. Now that I've got a little bit of time on my hands this spring, I'm back at it. After this project is done, it will be on to painting over the insipid stenciled heart border in my kitchen. Why, I ask you! Why?

Here are a few photos from the project . . . if you are interested.

At the start of the project. Note the stupid border:



Part of a wall done:


Oh, No! Look at those cracks!

I had to get rather generous with the spackle.



Wow, even the tinted primer looks nice!



The first coat of primer is complete.



Oh, Charlotte. Now I truly understand. It wasn't the culture's Victorian mindset. It wasn't post-partum depression. It wasn't even the Mitchell rest cure. IT WAS JUST THE DAMN WALLPAPER!!!



Stay tuned. . . the final paint color is "Chianti." I think I'll have a glass to match when this project is all said and done.

Tillie's Interpretation of the Dog Dance

Check out this hilarious dog "dance" video.

. . . Tillie provides her own interpretive moment to an appreciative audience.

It is Spring Break, don't you know!!

I'm Back

Wow,
I can't believe I haven't written since October. Since that time, I have switched jobs, redirected a lot of anger at those who have control over my path, struggled with some personal demons, battled institutional bureaucracies (several of them!!!), and solidified what I want to do when I grow up. It's been a challenge. I have found that I am more resilient than I ever thought I could be. While in this time of transition, I have been reading more than I have been able to in many many years. Some of it has been great (The Arrival, The Wall, Seems Like a Funny Story, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, ....). Some of it crap (Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You). And, much of it highly useful to the new class I will be offering this coming fall.

The title I just finished last night was Brent Runyon's The Burn Journals. It's a rather graphic and disturbing account of the author's adolescent depression, his survival and recovery after setting himself on fire in a failed suicide attempt, and some of the normal growing up process and anxieties of a fourteen-year-old boy. Powerful, frustrating, riveting, eye-opening -- all describe the narrative for me. There aren't that many books out there that help to explore the depth of adolescent depression. Though not without a few significant flaws, this text is useful in helping readers to understand the darkness through which some teens struggle.

To balance out the darkness of that text, I'm reading Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie's Song this evening. I think Harlem Summer by Myers will be next for tomorrow.

Well, back to reading. I hope to write more and post more often now that my mind is back on track with life and my career goals.