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			NEW New July 28, 2002 Here's a new one. I'm trying to teach the kiddo about making websites. She's watching over my shoulder. Trying to remember the difference between what a "break" code and a "paragraph" code do after about two years away from html is interesting. And it's about as exciting to watch as paint drying. The kiddo is bored. Uh-oh. New March 29, 2001 I'm about ready to scream. Oh wait... I grow redundant. I was about ready to scream the last time I wrote in here. Do I see a pattern developing? I'd hoped to write an actual entry right now, but then one student came in needing a stapler and another came in needing help with using the phone book. And another came to say he wouldn't be in class and I'm pissed with this whole college at the moment. Why can't I go live in the woods for a year, and listen to trees talk? Time to teach. New March 15, 2001 Yesterday I underwent endoscopy. Nasty thing. They kinda dope you up, and you drink a little tub of vile bitter gel that numbs your throat, and then they shove a tube down your throat. Camera. Lights. Action. Up close and personal tour of the upper gastro-intestinal area. Boy howdy. More fun than anybody should have lying down. I wake up with a big old sore throat, a groggy hangover that lasts several hours and a glossy color photo of my own esophagus. "I went for invasive surgery and all I got was this stupid picture." So at least I don't have stomach cancer or anything hideous. Just a hiatal hernia. All the rest of the afternoon I'm all grogged out, and my throat hurts, so we finally go out for a very short while to get some ice cream. Ice cream sounds good with a sore throat, right? While we're out, I get a call from the brass at the college where I teach, saying I need to come in early Friday morning to talk to a civil rights investigator. A student I had a couple years ago has filed a complaint about some stuff that A) in no way infringed on her civil rights and B) weren't under my control anyway. But here I am, forced into conference calls with civil rights attorneys. Me. Me, for god's sake. Me who stayed in trouble with my "home" people for decades because of my civil rights feelings. Good grief. Truth is, I just want to scream. When will enough be enough? Haven't I proved whatever it is I'm supposed to prove under this onslaught of stuff in my life? I'm still cheerful. I still love life. I still refuse to give in and just fold myself up in a corner into a gibbering blob, which is what sounds really good, to be honest. I'm just so tired. What did I do to deserve this? New March 13, 2001 Bright sun wavers high The sky is blue, ground is damp Spring clings to rebirth. New February 11, 2001 We've got two trees in our back yard! Okay, maybe it doesn't sound like such a big deal. But I love trees, and our back yard has been a nightmare for three years now. It's a cramped shoebox lined with decrepit cedar fencing and mostly scabrous summertime grass. It never rains here in the summer. I hate that, too, but there's nothing I can do about it. So I finally said, look, if I'm going to stay here, there's got to be some green in my world. I can't stand this hot brittle brown nine months a year any longer. I don't care if our water bill goes up. I don't care if I have to go out and water every day. Just please please please give me something that might conceiveably be green in the summer. And now we have two trees, a Rayburn ash and a Japanese maple. We're about to start planting some shrubs to line the back fence, too. Someday I hope to be able to sit at the desk in my study, look out the window, and see green. I dream about green. I miss green. Green might make me feel a little bit closer to at home in this alien place. New February 9, 2001 Another blank page: The story of my life. Sometimes I think that I've done nothing for 40 years except tackle blank pages, filling them with everything from prose to poetry to song lyrics to doodles to sketches to work notes to class notes to quizzes to exercises to tests to stories.... It's endless. So why do I keep doing it? Why do I keep exposing myself to ever more blank pages? Maybe because that frisson of terror is what keeps me smiling in the rest of my life. Maybe not. New September 28 I've added a new job, full-time, atop two part-time jobs. Haven't had much time for the internet or correspondence. Maybe when I get used to the new schedule and stop spending all my "off" time asleep. School continues. Kidlet's homeschooling continues. My new job is night shift. Thank heavens for medication. New August 28 I'm convinced the sun is literally closer to the earth out here. It hangs like some mega-monstrous toaster oven element in the sky, and bakes everything to an arid, crusted, crackling dryness. Even when the wind blows - god forbid - from the south, which is most usual, it's hot. It feels like Mother Nature's turned her blow-dryer straight in your face. Breath-sucking, lip-cracking hot. Can you tell it's not my favorite thing? Now it's about to be September, and I can at least afford to start dreaming about the coming of rain sometime soon. I never, ever expected to miss rain as much as I do. Maybe I should've held out for Seattle instead. Things to waste time on today: How about a look at sexy new scifi divas? (Their term, not mine.) Obviously these newcomers to SF never bothered to read any of the old SF classics. Or how about a look at living in the net? Suppose it'll ever come to this? New August 24 Sometimes I see this for the massive act of hubris it is. I can't help anybody else. I can barely help myself, most days. I don't feel depressed now, or hyper. But I feel at drift, still. Is this what grief does? Is this what happens when something you'd always thought of as rock-solid is suddenly gone? I keep looking for me, but I don't know where I've gone. So I do fabric crafts. The words are gone. They've vanished, migrated, flown south for this empty season. I miss them. I hope I haven't postponed them one time too many. New August 11 Two weeks later. Two weeks of slowing down, paring back, fumbling for some kind of core to my selfness. I know continuance is possible. I think maybe joy is possible. But I still don't know what I want. I still don't have any dreams. I still don't know... don't laugh... who I am. Silly, right? New July 28 I haven't died. I just can't seem to get focused again. The broken plate was some kind of last straw, maybe? I'm not sure. DAILY STOPS CNN.com Salon Magazine Arts & Letters amazon.com Writer's Almanac LOOK IT UP... Merriam-Webster dictionaries

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Old Stuff That Might Still Be Good Stuff

New in July
Stressed for success
Back in the saddle...
Because I could not...

From June
The completion of Classwork
Regret and mortality
New reviews for "Idoru," "Mad Ship" and "The Perfect Storm"
The cloud creeps in on little cat feet

Methodical Madness is a personal web site, not associated with any commercial operation. The creator and writer of Methodical Madness has been a journalist, professor, junior high teacher, convenience store clerk, aerobics teacher, fiction editor, apa-zine publisher, rider, gardener, carpenter, manager, salesman, workshop leader, motivational speaker, online technical support staff and tired. Current jobs include writing, partnering, parenting, part-time teaching and full-time wrestling with bipolar disorder.

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