vernal equinox...welcome home jesus!

So, it was Easter on Sunday, so maybe I have Easter on the brain...but I learned some new things today...Amy (my CT) told me that her minister husband told her about the specific date of Easter--that it is the Sunday after the full moon after the Vernal Equinox. If I may digress, (which I will), I LOVE astronomy and Latin roots. They sound so smart and sexy. Vernal equinox, according to Wikipedia, has to do with when the sun is positioned over the Earth's equator...and in my opinion, when the old Greek and Latin people figured stuff out. I want to go by the sun!!!
There's a town in Italy...I think it was Siena (maybe I'm wrong, I'd have to check the pictures)-- that the town clock on the tower in the center of the town only had an hour hand. Yes. I want to live there. Imagine a conversation on timekeeping:
"What time is it?"
"Well, it's 11-something."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Nah."
"In that case, I think I'll have another glass of wine, because I'm probably not supposed to be somewhere for a while."

Societies that carefully charted suns and moons and storms and stars...I just love it. Meteors= something unexplainable and amazing. Yep, that's as much science as I want to know. Plus, societies like that probably approved of the naked moon dance...the bathe in the moonlight ritual...show the moon your breasts dance that Aunt Janet originated...or at least shared with me...

So, Easter was low-key. I had a couple of events this weekend: picked up a shift at the art shop for Ariel, had a lovely home-cooked (well, chicken) dinner with Carrie, Chris, and Jay, then a fun housewarming party at Will's. Saturday was busy, but I got to see my mom a bit-- she's getting on with her paper and actually making some headway. Let's see, Jay helped set up for my 'old skool' Pre-graduation Party...people came, we played games, enjoyed each other's company, etc...then I had church on Sunday and a nice lunch with the family. I love weekends like this. :)

So, with Easter on the brain, a Jimmy Eat World song came up on my (stupid skipping) itunes: called "Casino." The words that caught my ear were "all the salt in the world won't melt that ice"-- what could possibly be so thick and difficult to travail that all the salt can't help you through? That seems rough...
Some of my students are reading Echelbreigh's "Nickel and Dimed"-- which is fun to discuss with ego-centric 14 yo's-- because the concept of an actual living wage is so disquieting when they are so happy to be part of a class that has possibly recently climbed out of the lower classes of poverty on which our nation is built...I just felt like I was starting the kindling to a fire that might blaze up with these blase kids...that they can choose to make change: "Get up, Get up
Fight off the system
I play my little part in something big"-- who knows? I hope something at least was a little begun...
"I'll accept with poise and grace"-- I appreciate any song that encourages poise and grace...what a better world it would be if we lived every moment with as much grace. I don't know, it sounds cliche, but grace seems like the answer...to so many questions.

I guess I'll just put the lyrics here, and recommend that if you want to hear a catchy song that just might make you think, check this one...

but seriously, is this not crying out for a lesson at church school or something?? Well, whatever your faith...and I'm not sure that mine is sitting squarely in a church right now, but, yeah, "rock on, young savior"!!

-_-Adr


Before this world starts up again
It's me and night
We wait for the sun
The kids and drunks head back inside

Well there's lots of smart ideas
In books I never read
When the girls come talk to me
I wish to hell I had

Get up, Get up
Turn my ignition
Get up, Get up
Fight off the system
I play my little part in something big

I'll accept with poise, with grace
When they draw my name from the lottery
And they'll say all the salt in the world couldn't melt that ice
I'm the one who gets away
I'm a New Jersey success story
And they'll say: "Lord give me the chance to shake that hand"
They'll say...

Back when I was younger
I was someone you'd have liken
Got an old guitar I've had for years, I'd let you buy
And I'll tell you something else
That you ain't dying enough to know
There's still some living left when your prime comes and goes

Get up, Get up
Dance on the ceiling
Get up, Get up
Boy you must be dreaming
Rock on young savior
Don't give up your hopes

I'll accept with poise, with grace
When they draw my name from the lottery
And they'll say all the salt in the world couldn't melt that ice
I'm the one who gets away
I'm a New Jersey success story
And they'll say: "Lord give me the chance to shake that hand"

I have one last wish
And it's from my heart
Just let me down
Just let me down... easy

I'll accept with poise, with grace
When they draw my name from the lottery
And they'll say all the salt in the world couldn't melt that ice
I'm the one who gets away
I'm a New Jersey success story
And they'll say: "Lord give me the chance to shake his hand"
They'll say...

Music-shuffle-up-a-gus

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line (unless the first line reveals the song title) from the first 30 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and song title correctly.
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If you like it, post your own!


1. Well painted passion
You rightly suspect
Impersonation

2. If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give 'em what they want.

3. I met Jane at the center of the earth
It was dark there was dirt all around
But I gather you can figure that

4. Sweet talkin' Johnny push a john quicker than he spit
Street walkin' tin with a crooked crown waitin' for it
There she goes

5. I feel like a quote out of context
With holding the rest
So I can be for you what you want to see

6. Where have all the bastards gone?
The underbelly stacks up ten high
The dummy failed the crash test (okay, there’s a few lyrics right before this, but I don’t like them.)

7. These walls have eyes/ Rows of photographs/ And faces like mine/ Who do we become/ Without knowing where/ We started from

8. Mama,just killed a man,
Put a gun against his head,
Pulled my trigger,now hes dead, (hint, it’s a musical!)

9. I quit lookin' at the clock,
it will only bring me down and it wont bring you here.
If I pulled out all the stops and a little less in my hair, could I bring you here?

10. Oh, come crush me now/ Don't leave/ no one has won this war/ this time

11. I try but I cant seem to get myself/ To think of anything/ But you/ Your breath on my face/ Your warm gentle kiss I taste the truth

12. Perderti cosÃ, come un attimo
mentro tutto va oltre i limiti
della mia fantasia, tu che eri mia!!

13. I want to tell you something
That I should've, long ago
I wish that you and I had those kids
Maybe bought us that home

14. Fear me you lord and lady preachers
I descend upon your earth from the skies
I command your very souls you unbelievers

15. I bit my tongue and stood in line
With not much to believe in
I bought into what I was sold
And ended up with nothing

16. As soon as my eyes shut the slide show begins
Yesterday is gone now and panic sets in
With a weight upon my chest
and a ghost upon my back

17. Come, they told me, pa rum pa pum pum
A newborn King to see, pa rum pa pum pum

18. Blink and you miss a beat
Keep one of your eyes open at all times
Think that you're on the brink
The shit hasn't even begun to hit the fan

19. I can't control this flesh and blood
That's wrapped around my bones
It moves beneath me like a river
Into the great unknown

20. She feels the ground is giving way
But she thinks we're better off that way
The more you take the less you feel
The less you know the more you believe
The more you have the more it takes today

21. Some summers in the evening after 6 or so
I walk on down the hill
And maybe buy a beer
I think about my friends

22. So you say
I'm too quiet
Holding things
Up in my head

23. Tired eyes closed for days
there's no regret, 'cause there's no place
I don't know what I believe
but if I feel safe, what do I need
Revolution! (this is my least fav on the album)

24. I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that youve been living in

25. She is mine!
I ONLY SPEAK THE TRUTH!
Chhamma Chhamma Re Chhamma Chhamma
Chhamma Chhamma Baaje Re Meri Paejaniyaan

26. Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun

27. You think that I go home at night
Take off my clothes, turn out the lights
But I burn letters that I write
To you, to make you love me

28. A lovestruck romeo sings a streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with me a lovesong that he made

29. I let the beast in too soon, I don't know how to live
Without my hand on his throat; I fight him always and still
Oh darling, it's so sweet, you think you know how crazy
How crazy I am

30. I ran from my house that cannot contain me
From the man that I cannot keep
From my mother who haunts me, even though she's gone
From my daughter that never sleeps
I ran from the noise and the silence

Super-Tuesday

So, today was supposed to be Super-Afternoon Tuesday...the kids had testing, so I had my 10th graders at the end, not the middle of the day, then I had chorale rehearsal, then Dan and I had some fun-ness planned. Alas.

The testing part was fine (Mrs. Galloway is HILARIOUS!) and the teaching part was fine. One student has deemed himself the class dad...I guess it's like my 3rd grade "room mother"--except that he just threatens the other kids with a belt if they don't do their work. Funny stuff. I think he wouldn't hit them...

Then I got home, walked Bella, and then, my car wouldn't start. After several phone calls to people more mechanically inclined, I ascertained that my car's battery was fine. It's less than a year old too. I missed rehearsal. :(

So, later, Dan came over...even though our original plans were to go to the CrAzY carnival and watch this Romanian film at the Art Cinema and then watch his awesome Dvd handiwork on my teaching video...(see, it's a super Tuesday)...and he started taking apart the innards of my car to get the starter out. A few hours in the dark and cold later, the starter was freed, and on its way to be recycled or refurbished or sold on the used-car market at Auto-Zone. Yay, new starter. Yay, Dan! Yay, Dan for making my car go! Yay, Dan for filming and editing my teaching video! (I look like Bonner at times when I teach, in case anyone's wondering...)

Even later than that, all the lights went off at my house...not a big deal, since I have the scary fuse box. HOWEVER, I didn't realize that the electrician had made good on his word and REPLACED MY SCARY FUSEBOX WITH A CIRCUIT BREAKER SWITCHY THINGIE PANEL! You have no idea how excited I was. The screw-in fuses are so scary. They pop and are hot and are hard to handle. (Sounds like black crowes)...but it is better...anddddddddd my dryer is better! No growling! It turns, it heats...it dries clothes!
Super-Tuesday is going to end with my car working, me drying clothes, and a giant bowl of potato crisps at Manuel's...la vie est bon. Oh, et Dan est la merde. :)