And then. . .

One of my favorite hobbies is people watching. I love to see how people gesture with their hands, the stride of their walks, arms swinging out, flicks of hair. There are so many messages being conveyed at once it's hard to ignore (either that or I'm creepy). Many times I use these people in my work when I write. I take interesting nervous ticks and shuffles, word choice and diction, and make them my character's. For example, today while walking around campus I saw a guy  with slunched shoulders, as if the backpack he was carrying itched. Without seeing his face I knew he was uncomfortable. It was as obvious as a girl who's had on cheap stilettos four hours past their comfort time. There was something interesting in the guy with the itchy backpack, and it wasn't until he turned that I realized why he was uncomfortable. Almost ever inch of his body was covered in tattoos. There was no order or reason to them, they weren't delicate pieces of labored artwork, th...

Today is Friday. It's felt like a Friday from the moment I pressed snooze on my alarm. I dozed for 10 more minutes with a large dog barking in the background. He, I assume a he because of the deep baritone, barked on and off all night. Internitingly in my sleep I kept wondering how his owner couldn't hear him and if it would be really bad if I could kick him. The owner, not the dog, because only a man could ignore such incessiant barking though out the night. I went to school and taught my class. Today we played a game called English 1301 Feud. I created a Power Point with common mistakes and definitions and each group competed against each other. They had fun. I had fun, and more imporatantly they learned the difference between passive and active voice. (She was killed by zombies. The zombies killed her.) The rest of my day has consisted of conversations. Conversations about writing and publishing, students and teaching, all over coffee. Conversations about Sami the dog an...

This is me you say, at least I say. "This is me, what you see is what you get," but there are so many sides to me, to each of us. Today I woke thinking about roles. The roles we play in our own lives as in others. I began thinking of one of those multi-faced dolls, the same face, but each is something different in a way depending on the angle. Somehow as we get older those roles begin to multiply further. More and more of our profiles appear like a flick of the finger against an endless line of dominoes with our features etched on the side in a continuous cascade.  daughter          sister granddaughter                niece                 cousin               aunt  sister-in-law                 wife    daughter-in-law           sister-in-law   ...