When will someone tell the Neo-cons that they're delusional in believing they are conservative by any stretch of the imagination. Unless they kidnapped Webster, and forced him to change his definition, and we all know this is quite possible .

I'm an Anti-Federalist in many ways, therefore conservative, but not a proud member of the GOP. Here is my list of Anti-Federalist morals:
The federal government should...
...stay out of a woman's uterus
...not be giving my tax dollars to Faith-based Christian groups to facilitate more crusaders
...stay out of people's bedrooms and stop trying to write discrimination into our law of the land
...stop sending people to the chair (who are we to decide who lives and dies?... oh wait... America says)
...stay away from my personal internet usage
...not own stock on Wall St.
...not be listening via  three-way calls
The federal government needs to smoke a joint
...not be waging war against people who don't understand us
...stop trying to make educators do something with nothing

My beliefs on the opposite end (for the Federalists out there):

.The federal government should make cheap health-care available to everyone
.The federal government should support education financially, but more importantly, holistically
.The federal government should protect me from foreign invaders, not attack AS a foreign invader
.The federal government should be speaking with and educating people who don't understand us

*Warning... This post is cheesy!*

The most intimate moment I've ever had with someone happened yesterday. I'm not talking about sex either. And, although it was 6:30 in the morning after a long bender, I remember every moment, every word, and every thought. I mean to say I was of sound mind.

It was that you're-the-one moment... which I've never had. And, you have these brain flashes 10, 20, 30 years later, and it's pretty much just as good as it is right in the moment that you fall back out of the flash forwards for.

Woo Hoo!

You know that one moment you hug someone and the hug carries every sort of pleasure you have of the person you're hugging, and you are trying to give all of this pleasure to him/her through the hug. I'm not talking about the first hug, or the obligatory, hi-how-ya-doin' hug. It's one of those hugs you have while you're lying next to him on the couch and there's a snuggle factor already in effect. Since your arms are around him, you give the squeeze (the act from which the hug derives). Then you have this sense of elatedness, and you want to squeeze harder to prove it's there, but of course squeezing harder would only make the one being hugged a little out of breath. 

Hugs are generally accepted as one of the most congenial ways to appreciate someone you care about. I think even more than a kiss. I mean, sure, yeah, a kiss is great and all. I like kissing. Kissing is great. Who doesn't like kissing? But kissing should generally be reserved for a good-bye that starts a long separation, or the cute kiss during commercials when your getting up from the couch to refill your beverage, or for intimate times between partners that usually begins foreplay. And during all of these situations there's a certain loaded-ness to the kiss (not to be taken in a pejorative context).

But, the hug... the hug is suited for any occasion. Yeah, there are the false hugs with fake back slaps and what-have-you, so I'm not contending that people can't fall short of what a hug should really mean. However, there's a certain backdrop to a hug that doesn't require intimacy, but when the intimacy is there, a whole new world of possibility opens with the action of hugging.

Hmph. Now I just want to give him a hug.

I just bought the complete series of Seinfeld... Glorious waste of summer days, here I come!

Having  a cold in the middle of May is a little bit like having a budding tulip in your garden in the dead of December.

My head is floaty, my nose is a perpetual faucet, and my stomach is topsy-turvy from digesting an unknown amount of mucus that continues to drip down my throat. What doesn't make it to the esophagus, slowly slides its way down my bronchial tubes and into my smoke-blackened lungs. There it sits until a fit of coughing dislodges a clump of indistinct matter and expels it from my oral orifice. Yum.

This is the second cold I've had in two weeks, and I chalk it up to two reasons: 1. Teenagers; their grubby, dirty fingers touch everything I own in my classroom, I bring home their papers to grade from their uniquely germ-ed households and incorporate said germs into my daily life... sick. 2. The weather; erratic changes in moisture, air pressure, and temperature over the last two months have done a number on my sinus cavities, and my internal barometer.

Today is particularly pleasant, but of course it won't last. We're expected to get more rain within the next 24 hours. Luckily, I live on the second floor of my apartment building. When the ground becomes so saturated that the foundations of buildings begin to seep and sink, at least I'll still be high and dry. But, despite this school of thought, and overabundance of water is better than the alternative... that is until the ice-shelves completely melt. Waterworld anyone?

Today was the seniors' last day at work. I'll be more specific. Seniors in high school, not geriatrics. They don't actually graduate until Memorial Day weekend, but nonetheless, they're done. I'm thinking about the ones I'll miss, and it may seem a little nefarious, but it won't be many of them.

It was the seniors I've had the most challenges with, not curriculum-wise, but behavioral. They've truly tested my limits on how to deal with people who are old enough that they should be talked to like responsible human beings. And, it's tough to look someone in the eyes who has just told you, "I can't wait until you get fired," and not respond with "fuck you." My tact has molded into a fine-tuned series of sarcastic witticisms that put characters in their places without actually offending any sensibilities. Of course, I still let a "your mom" slip out every now and then.

It seems the students I will miss most are students I don't even have in my classroom. One student, we'll call him Bob, came into my room on a weekly basis with a new album, or three, of tunes that have significantly supplemented my music library. These are the connections I'll miss. And, they only happen few and far between. It's those sole students, though, that truly turn a bad day into a good week.

Engine Driver

I'm an engine driver
On a long run, on a long run.
Would I work beside her?
She's a long one, such a long one.
And, if you don't love me, let me go.
And, if you don't love me, let me go.

I'm a county lineman
On a high line, on a high line.
So will be my grandson;
There are power lines in our bloodlines.

And, if you don't love me, let me go.
And, if you don't love me, let me go.

And, I am writer, a writer fictions;
I am the heart that you call home.
And, I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones,
My bones, my bones.

I'm a money lender.
I have fortunes upon fortunes.
Take my hand for tender,
I am tortured, ever tortured.

And, if you don't love me, let me go.
And, if you don't love me, let me go

And, I am writer, writer of fictions;
I am the heart that you call home.
And, I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid from my bones.
I am a writer.
I am all that you have; home! Oh!
And, I've written pages upon pages
Trying to rid from my bones,
My bones, my bones.

And, if you don't love me, let me go.
And, if you don't love me, let me go.

-Colin Meloy

How awesome would it be to actually have space colonies? The idea that we could leave this planet and terraform another so that it could support human life. Of course, we would then rape the new planet, extracting every piece of material we feel is valuable in order to habituate a process of imperialism on a galactic scale. But, a little less cynical, this is a most mind-enveloping concept.

This could be an endeavor the entire world could rally behind. A collaboration for adventuring out into the known universe and experiencing so much more than is available here on our minute little world. This would be so beyond our selfish understanding of what we have here (i.e. a finite supply of oil, global warming, world food shortage, etc...).

Can humans really take on their own existence? Can we control our futures? So far, this seems improbable. We rely on the planet for oxygen, water, nutrients, medicine, energy, and on and on. When will there be a moment, an 'ah-ha' moment, where we are capable of  a collective comprehension that considers how it's not important that our sovereign states stand the test of time, but that humans do? Now, I know many of the few who read this might advocate the extinction of the human race for the good of the planet, the universe even. Not to say you want to nuke homo sapiens off the face of the earth, but the faster Nature gets rid of us, the faster she'll be able to regain a positive livelihood.

But, while we're here (the royal we), we should at least try to make something of this weird little accident that happened in the middle of an infinitely vast web of astronomical anomalies. We might as well waste time doing it. What else do we have to do? All of us are so worried about gas prices, if the plants got watered, what we're eating tonight, who the next president will be.

The big picture: Each one of us is not doing anything significant enough to really make what happens outside of our own lives mean more than the inuring of what already has been. So, let's waste our insignificance trying to accomplish a task that might prove there's more than what we already know to be true. "To boldly go where no one has gone before."

I would like to recommend to you all www.236.com. Their tagline: "Some of the News, Most of the Time." I always chuckle at least once. It's cut of the same cloth from which The Onion spawned.

Here's one of the entries I stumbled upon...

Secret McCain Campaign Slogan Memo Leaked

This summer is going to be, for lack of a better word, sweet.... Come to think of it, though, sweet sums it up.

I do regret saying 'yes' to being in a production of Camelot at the Hoogland theater in Springfield. It's a pretty big venue, I guess. And really not that much of a time commitment (once a week starting at the end of July), but the fact that I have an obligation is sort of obnoxious. However, it should be fun. The director of my school's performance of Oz, for which I assistant directed (and got a pretty solid stipend for), is the art director. It's because of him that I didn't even need to audition. I don't really know the scope of the role of 'Castor.' It's probably not sizable, but I know it includes some speaking and singing, and I certainly miss music performance. So, item one is Camelot which will probably be a lot more exciting than I'm leading on.

Next, summer will include a trip to Oklahoma. As I speak on this, I'm reminded of that bit from Wayne's World when Wayne and Garth are in front of the blue screen traveling from state to state, and then they get to Delaware: "Hey... We're in... Delaware..." But, my best friend Darrel lives there. He's a fancy meteorologist; works for the University of Oklahoma, or is it Oklahoma University? Either way, he works through the state, funded by the National Weather Service in OK, and it's an excuse to go somewhere I've only driven through to get to a place much better. Here I come Oklahoma... "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains..."

I also envision a number of trips to Chicago to see a variety of mates. Ali's still there, and my cousin Tricia (she's a teacher too), plus Brian Daily, whom I haven't seen in ages; a number of others, especially a gentleman who is attractive in many ways... hi Scott.

While on Chicago, I got some tickets to Bill Maher at the Chicago Theater. This is exciting, as I've never been to a live, stand-up show, and Bill Maher is on top of my People You Most Admire list. This is in late July. Then there's the rest of August to plan something of import; who knows what? Molly, any ideas?

Ah, the summer. No work. No administration, no lesson plans, no students, and no parents of students who want nothing more than to come in and make you feel like your job is less than theirs only because they feel like they have the right to tell you what to do, even though you are a fucking professional in your field, and are smarter than them, and the only reason that they're bitching at you is because last night, and all the nights before and nights to come, they're going to have a loveless marriage with spoiled children and passionless sex that gives no satisfaction in life, so they have to find someone to take it out on, and that's the cocky, (soon-to-be) 24-year-old, English teacher who actually teaches their kids how to be humanistic and responsible. Blarg!

Honestly, the three months are a break for teachers for this reason. It probably doesn't help that I work in an all-white, affluent, rural community that lies right outside the political epicenter of the state; where the only businesses are the local grocery, local gas station, Subway, a coin shop going out of business, and 11 billion Christian churches. Oh, I forgot the local laundry-mat.

Woo Hoo! Summer!