I’m enjoying my moleskin diary. I’ve decided to title this diary ’39′ in honor of this being my 39th year. I want to see at the end of April (my birthday) what i’ve written in this year. Last Monday, the 25th, was the first day teaching my Creative Nonfiction class. It was a great first [...]

Posted in Movies, Uncategorized, books, collage, crafts, fiction, food, my writing, shopping, teaching 1 Comment »

Saturday I spent two hours reading in a coffee shop. I haven’t done that in a while and boy, was it nice. I’m almost done reading Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read it– at least two months– that’s crazy! I haven’t taken this long [...]

Posted in books, fiction, my writing, teaching 4 Comments »

This is my last week of teaching summer school. It’s been such a crunch– 4 days a week, a 4 month class squeezed into 6 weeks. But somehow I have just about made it and my class has been excellent. I don’t post too much about my class but I have to say they were [...]

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I just realized I haven’t posted about Tshirts in a long time. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love crazy T-shirts. Occasionally i’ll wear a T-shirt to teach in, but sometimes I worry that that i’m dressing too casual for teaching (though i’ve seen other teachers in shorts and flip-flops). When I wear [...]

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Last night, at the community college where I teach Ted and I gave a presentation titled That’s So Gay! for our annual Literary Arts Festival. It was the kickoff event, a reading/interrogation by several of the professors of the school. Our theme for the Lit. Arts Festival this year is The Writer As Activist and [...]

Posted in cute photos of me, my writing, poetry, questions that plague me, teaching, ted 6 Comments »

Oh, today I mourn the last day of teaching poetry! Alas! We’re heading into fiction after today. Last week I shared this Billy Collins poem with the class. Billy Collins. Sigh. I still have a man-crush on him (does that make me gay?). If you’ve read his poems you’ll know why. Class Picture, 1954 Billy [...]

Posted in books, cute photos of me, poetry, teaching 5 Comments »

So I gave my Creative Writing class some more poetry prompts (for the 2nd leg of the poetry section) today. One of the prompts is a “list poem.” I’m really a big fan of lists in writing–no matter the genre– the cataloging of things– Aaron Hamburger uses lists in creative ways in his book Faith [...]

Posted in Movies, my writing, teaching 3 Comments »

I’m almost finished with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Boo-ra. Let me just say how terrifying, how sad, how beautifully written The Road is. Quick plot synopsis from NYTimes: In “The Road” a boy and his father lurch across the cold, wretched, wet, corpse-strewn, ashen landscape of a post-apocalyptic world. The imagery is brutal even by [...]

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Three Little Words, is an MGM musical from 1950 that tells the true story (meaning it totally fictionalizes) of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (together they wrote “Who’s Sorry Now,” “I Wanna Be Loved By You,” and “A Kiss To Build A Dream On” among others). Kalmar is played by Fred Astaire, Red Skelton [...]

Posted in Movies, Uncategorized, books, teaching 5 Comments »

I’m back teaching now– two classes that I absolutely love: Advanced Composition and Introduction to Creative Writing. Thus i’ve been a bit lax on posting the last few days, sorry! But i’ll get back into the swing of it by the end of the week. Just some quick notes for now. Joined Goodreads– so cool [...]

Posted in books, collage, crafts, fiction, my writing, teaching 10 Comments »