Do I dare disturb the universe?

I started the year with the intention of writing in this space more. I even had outlined topics through February. Obviously that didn’t happen. But here’s some of what did:

Baby still can’t walk, but—like her dear old dad—has taken to climbing on couches, chairs, and tables. She likes to awkwardly bounce and shriek like a squirrel monkey once she’s achieved maximum height. Now, she’s doing some serious teething and is sometimes sick, grumpy, and is also leaking—from, like, everywhere. I did not know that making teeth was so hard.*

Afternoons are often taken up with baby-wrangling.

Much of the day is taken up with teaching, working on next year’s curriculum ideas, summer reading, grading, etc.

In the interims:

Way back in October or November, I was asked by the yearbook staff if I wanted to write a poem for the yearbook using its theme “The Inside Story.” I was given a list of quotes that were the original seeds of the theme and that were rejected. Evidently folks like Dostoevsky and Vonnegut just couldn’t hack the assignment.

No pressure there.

With the idea of “The Inside Story and the Story Inside,” I started writing a sestina because of the circularity I was imagining. Six or seven months later, this week, I finally had to step away and turn it in. The sestina has been the most difficult form that I’ve attempted. I may publish it here after the yearbook is available to students.

Podcasts and Journals and Panels:

A few friends and I are developing a blog and a journal. The early rumblings are here. We will update on Mondays and are currently gathering work….

I’m a semi-regular contributor in words or sounds to The Drunken Odyssey. I have some drafts of some music for the show and a short essay on The Shining that I need to finish. This show is a weekly ritual in my writing life and I love that host John King talks to a wide range of writers at various points in their careers.

A calculus teacher and friend has asked me to contribute to his new math podcast called For Each Epsilon. If one of my students is reading this then they will be wondering what I could possibly say about math since I can’t even correctly count anything that I hand out. They would be right and wouldn’t be questioning anything I didn’t myself. However, Mr. James (who’s absolutely and genuinely excited about math and interested in the world around him) is also interested in discussions of math as it applies to logic and music (and maybe even sci-fi), so this will be a nice opportunity to review some ideas and essays that I haven’t thought about in a long time. We’re developing topics….

And there are some other projects that are coming together including collaborating on some academic papers and panels connected to the worlds of education and writing and some sort of e-book collaboration, etc….

And, if you missed it, I wrote about 30 Things I Love Right Now. Or 30 things I loved right then.

Happy National Poetry Month!

*Besides the difficulty of teeth-making, I’ve just been informed that everyone in the house but me has walking pneumonia.