**The musical kind not the poultry kind!**

Before someone emails me and tells me to "update," (I have some people monitoring this blog who have expectations) here a new goofy quiz: This is the object that I apparently am:

You are a drumstick. Absolutely insane. That is how most would describe you. You aren't afraid to take risks, and enjoy putting yourself in strange situations. Most people hang out with you because of your hilarious sense of humour. You light up any bad situation, and can help all of your friends with their problems, except for your own. Because of this, you enjoy being around people like you. Many shut you out for your very weird, random personality, but honestly, you shouldn't care. Most compatible with: Guitar, and another drumstick. Click here -- What Random Object Represents Your Inner Self?

Now I just want to add here that I, infact, did take drumming lessons... in college. I spent many late nights in the practice room with headphones on, hammering away to Iron Butterfly and Traffic. My percussion teacher told me at the end of the semester, that the only difference between me and RINGO STARR is that Ringo Starr could keep time.

I don't play the drums anymore. It is better that way.

**Empty nest**

He's gone.

**Biological Clock... Just Say NO**

It occured to me that today my niece, who has found this site and now monitors my blog (cursed tracking systems:)) turns 26 years old.

Because I like to fantasize that she looks to me for advice on matters philosophical and otherwise, I thought I would share with her what my life was like when I turned 26.

While my niece enters the second half of her 20's climbing the rocket scientist "ladder," my days were filled with the screeches of a certain cousin of hers.

Where my niece's evenings are filled with important decisions like, whether to rock-climb or eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, my 26 year old evenings were filled with strategies on how to make her cousin stop screechin' (the theme music to ABC World News Tonight had an oddly calming effect on her).

While my 26 year old niece spends this time in her life scheming and planning her next great adventure, I spent my days of that year scheming about easier ways to cook, puree and freeze carrots in ice cube trays for infant food.

Now this certain cousin of hers - who doesn't screech anymore, BTW - also reads my blog, so I don't want to leave the impression that I would have chosen a different life. All in all, those enormous sacrifices I made during my 26th year have, I hope, situated me quite nicely in the karmic scheme of things. Within the next decade, I fully expect my daughter to support me (I mean money here), or worse case scenario, provide me with free vet care for mis companiones de perros.

But, my dear niece, in case anyone starts using cruel language over the next few year like "any plans to settle down" or "biological clock," I want you to call me and I will send you videos of my daughter sitting on my shoulder and spitting up all over my head.

I am happy to send this to Jen and Gavin too, but I think they are past the point of no return and are doomed to experience the spit up for themselves.

Happy Birthday to you, and I will treat you to the LUSH product of your choice at Whistler for your BD.

**Top 7 reasons why you may want to think twice about working at a certain state university**

• 7) Exploit large number of applicants applying for faculty positions (because of the beautiful surroundings and generally excellent quality of life) by offering dismally low tenure track salaries (in a profession that already is a vow of poverty).

• 6) Harass a young female kicker of the university's Division 1 football team until she leaves the college.

• 5) Throw parties for young football recruits and toss in some alchohol and sex to boot.

• 4) Respond to resulting sexual harassment lawsuits by having an "independent" investigation, the results of which are then sealed by a grand jury.

• 3) Continue to perpetuate a culture of "openness" and transparency by initiating a Board of Regents investigation into the scholarly work of a tenured faculty member because the state's governor didn't like what said faculty member wrote in an essay... published three years ago.

• 2) Stabilize the clearly ruptured foundations of academic freedom, calm nervous faculty members, and alleviate the general feeling of anxiety caused by Board of Regents investigation by....

(and this is the #1 reason...)

• 1) Requiring that every faculty who is a U.S. citizen take a loyalty oath to support the state and federal constitution!

Where are the Jehovah's Witnesses when we need them?!

**A message for Karl Rove on the difference between intelligence and intellect**

This past Friday I attended a talk by Cornel West. He is one of the few true public intellectuals left in this country - Bill Moyers being another fine example. I was struck by two aspects of his talk. First, he tapped into what I have long believed: that racism is a deep structural problem in this society, embedded in systems of economics, politics, cultural formation of mainstream values and in the judicial system. The civil rights movement only dealt with the surface. West used the lens of race and the theory of racism to expose larger patterns of injustice and nondemocratic impulses that are uncritically presumed NOT to exist in our more cherished institutions, including the U.S. political system and the church.

West also talked about the different between an intelligent person (someone who is smart) and the intellectual (a person who engages in critical examination of the world and of oneself). We are sorely missing intellectuals in this country. We put far too much weight in the value of intelligence which does not require, as a precondition, any higher order moral reasoning or critical reflection. It only requires cleverness. I am talking to you Karl Rove!

The picture below is for my kids. They should know who I hang with on the grand moral compass that directs us in life.

**Out of the past, into my living room**

Haven't seen him since my daughter was a toddler and my Italy-bound son was an infant. Have only talked to him twice in all those years - the most recent time was a few days ago, since he was apparently tasked with finding my son's plane ticket to Italy.

Last night my son tells me that ex-brother in law is coming down from Washington this afternoon. Now this should be interesting. Ex-brother in law is the guy who is funding the legal costs for ex-husband to mess with me.

So how does one interact with an ex-brother in law in a situation such as this? Is he fishing for information? He sure asked a lot of questions on the phone - about my life, law school plans (how did he know that?). He is cordial on the phone, and under other circumstances, I wouldn't think twice about anything. He apparently also is the ex-brother in law who does not think I am evil incarnate (yes there is one of those ex-brother in laws, too). But learning about the legal slush fund makes me wonder. Should I be concerned?

**Well bowl me over**

Welcome to a day that is both exhausting and suprising.

I have gone on, at times, with a self-pitying missive about how I don't get flowers on Valentines Day. I made exceptions for my children and my dear friend John who have sent me flowers over the years out of a combination of love and maybe alittle pity.

So I come home from work today - a very long day that started

• at 7:30 AM cramming to finish Spanish homework before class (one would think that a professor would be a little more diligent about doing homework), followed by
  
• teaching classes, mixed with
  
• meeting students between classes (not in itself a bad thing, but I was seriously counting on that inbetween time to prepare for the next class), followed by
  
• production meetings for the weekly television show. Intermixed in all that
• I had to write a response to my ex's lawyer's most recent transparently threatening email, and
• reading my usual array of blogs,
• programming my work VCR to record South Park goes to Hell and the Daily Show since I don't have cable at home,
• wander home to learn my son has his plane ticket to Italy and leaves in a week!
  
• and then notice on my counter...

FLOWERS

John comes through again. The ole pond is no barrier. Tip a pint for me, mate.

And may you all have a friend like this.

**I am wired**

Could it be the AWESOME rockin' fast wireless internet connection I now enjoy while propped on my futon watchin' the "West Wing."

Or

Could it be the three lattes I consumed today.

Only my credit card knows for sure.....

**When will he grow up?**

No, I don't mean my son... he is growing up just fine with all the burps and bumps of a normal young man figuring things out, I guess. The one I am truly worried about is my son's father. According to his birth certificate, he is 45 years old. The tone of his emails suggest he is about 12 - that perfect age where a one feels a complete sense of entitlement, harbors illusions that one knows everything, is completely defined by the term "self absorption," and rants in a letter that is unnervingly riddled with spelling mistakes.

I remain astounded at his inability to

• ask an understandable question,
• frame an letter without blaming me for everything,
• understand that one gets further with a request by being nice and
• realize that there is a spell check function on most emails.
  

I am looking into ways to block his email address and simply insist that all correspondence come from his attorney. Maybe he will tone it down a bit.

I watched Heather Armstrong talk on ABC World New Tonight about being "dooced." Now you know why this site is anonymous. Additionally, I am not interested in a libel suit, although almost everything I write about is opinion. Thank you, First Amendment.

My daughter told me today that a young man she knows at college committed suicide last night. My heart just aches at the thought. Be at peace.

**Why Oregon Rocks: Reason #1**

Shield Laws. Yes, shield laws. Oregon is one of those states that actually seeks to protect journalists. Of course in a perfect world such protection might not apply to people like Geraldo Rivera, but the definition of journalist has never been a perfect one.

And I just want to get on the record that our federal government (you know... the one that was, at one time in our history, emboldened to constitutionally protect freedom of the press) DOES NOT have a federal shield law on the books.

Now why would I be thinking about shield laws? So glad I asked. I am contemplating, as is true to my style, the worst case scenario with the most recent edition of the my son's independent newspaper. The lead story discusses the use of marijuana at the high school. Big surprise! But there are enough powerful quotes both identified and anonymous, that may attract the interest of....

1) a principal who may still be stinging from my son's generally noncompliant attitude towards stupid rules, abuses of power and the general cowardness that seems to permeate high school staff and administrators.

2) a district attorney who may, after getting wind of said article, decide it would be easy to intimidate young high school journalists into revealing sources of quotes and the identities of people in certain photographs.

Well people, guess what. We got rights in this here Oregon. No one is getting near these kids if I can do anything about it. Let's hope it is a non issue. Stay tuned....

Other states with shield laws:

1. Alabama
2. Alaska
3. Arizona
4. Arkansas
5. California
6. Delaware
7. Illinois
8. Indiana
9. Kentucky
10. Louisiana
11. maryland
12. Michigan
13. Minnesota
14. Montana
15. Nebraska
16. Nevada
17. New Jersey
18. Mew Mexico
19. New York
20. North Dakota
21. Ohio
22. Oklahoma
23. Pennsylvania
24. Rhode Island
25. Tennessee

And the First Amendment Center reports that there are 31 total, plus the District of Coloumbia. Wait! That is a majority of the states in this country! Hey, feds! Can you take a hint!?

**110 days until summer vacation**

Not the kind of heading you want to see from a teacher. But what can I say? I love being a teacher, it is just the teaching that is tough. Hey, it is hard work. First day of the semester and I have back-to-back meetings until noon. Tomorrow I get to enjoy a two hour admissions meeting and then I teach until late afternoon. How hard can that really be, right? God, if a public secondary teacher saw this posting, I would be innundated with hate mail.

But let us not forget a few things. They didn't have to go to school for 24 years and spend most of their working life paying off the graduate student loans that piled up on top of the undergraduate student loans. They don't have to work on numerous committees that are invariably a massive time sink because they operate like all things academic - slowly and inefficiently. They don't have to write AND publish in order to keep their job. And best of all, they make more money than most of us in higher education.

Still, they deserve daily medals for surviving the secondary school experience. I won't want their job for any salary. It is deadening.

Well done for the day with job one. Now home to job two. Thank god laundry is done.

**Can't put the laundry off much longer**

You may be right; I may be crazy...But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for!

T-minus 45 hours. Yes, I will need to re-acquaint myself with the ole frontloader and find something other than old jeans and sweat shirts to wear to work again. Teaching would be soooo perfect if I didn't have to actually teach.

I have been captive in my office for two days straight. Until midnight yesterday. All day today so far. One more course to prep. I love having my materials on the Internet, but it TAKES FOREVER to set it up. I really have to get comfortable with Cascading Style Sheets. I also have to stop tinkering so much with the aesthetic end. It is a goddamn syllabus for goodness sake!

I am in the midst of a concentration lapse so the blog gets what's left of me (somehow this sentence evokes images of Soylent Green).

My son is in the midst of laying out his most recent edition of his underground newspaper. The plan this time was to lay it out in less than one work day so that I would agree to hang out here at work while his friends put out the next issue after he is in Italy. Not quite working out that way. I guess he will have to put out the last issue right when he returns in May.


Well, back to syllabus hell. Em, you better call me:)

**Cut 'em out, dress 'em up and let 'em adjudicate!**

I figured since I am making my law students take this quiz, I should do it too. Of course you might have a seizure from all the flashing ads surround the quiz. You have been forewarned. More than who I am most like is who am most unlike. Those bottom few should be impeached!

Now that I am teaching the law class this semester, I get to set up my

Supreme Court Paper Dolls.

Yeah!!

Here is how I align with our honorables:

#1: Breyer (please don't ever retire)
#2: Souter (developing into a nice surprise)
#3: Ginsburg (gotta love her)
#4: Stevens (no retirement for you either)
#5: O'Connor (often the deciding vote in unpredictable and sometimes frightening ways.)
#6: Kennedy (I don't even know where to begin)
#7: Rehnquist (hope you feel better, and retire under a democratic administration, please...)
#8: Scalia (known for incomprehensible opinions and apparently hunting)
#9: Thomas (known for harassing women, in person and through his circuit court opinions)

**Proud Mama**

What an awesome kid. How many kids would do what he did and not freak out. How many 17 year olds would voluntarily stand up in front of 300 people and give a speech, if his very life didn't depend on it.

I am so proud of him.

This is how how kids keep us hooked as parents, especially through the tough times when we are leafing through the classified ads looking for the young loving couple interested in adopting a child of their own.

• Parents of infants get re-hookedwhen they get that sweet smile after hours of screaming.
• For parents of toddlers it is that spontaneous hug after drawing all over the walls with crayons.
• For parents of teens, it is those fleeting moments where their child does something, even something trivial, and for moment we see them morph to the other side and touch adulthood.
  

That premonition of how it will be someday, even if just for a fleeting moment before a child retreats back to parental hell, carries us well into their 20's.

**Where are the raising teen blogs!?**

I have been following Heather Armstrong's blog, Dooce.com, mostly because I was fascinated by what happened to her with her job. She writes with raw honestly about life with an infant. The NY Times style section, last weekend featured her blog and a picture of baby Leta, along with a discussion about the explosion of blogs by moms with babies, chronicling for the world the process of raising an infant.

So...

Where are the blogs about dealing with teens? Where are the blogs by parents:

• adjusting to empty nest syndrome,
• dealing with kids making unpredictable choices that will cascade through their lives,
• adjusting to complete lack of communication that apparently is common with teen boys?
• [insert topic of your choice here]
  

These blogs are badly needed. Heather and others like her need to refer to them in anticipation of how their lives will be in 12 years.

**My son's life: the mystery unfolding**

I woke up this morning absolutely convinced that my son was cutting himself off at the knees for deciding to go to Italy for the rest of his senior year instead taking his AP classes, college classes, editing his underground newspaper, and applying for a gazillion scholarships to help offset the obscene debt that one incurs procuring a college degree.

But then I managed to seek out the counsel of one much wiser and saner than I. A wonderful conversation with another colleague and beleaguered parent of boys, helped me ground my insanity about this whole thing.

So in a brief moment of rationality here is what I think about his plans:

I think going in the summer is a better choice, but going to Italy is most important of all. The kid will be alright. He is simply trying to pull away - not an easy thing to do in a single parent household that was pretty close knit.

The bottom line is that I think I did a decent job raising this kid I need to take some comfort in that. I have been the main adult influence on him for his entire life. I have to have faith that the foundation is there. He will certainly make mistakes and make poor choices - God knows I did - but those choices will just lead in new and interesting directions. I need to think of it as a mystery I get to watch unfold.

**Energizer academic**

I am in my office working. Yes working. Classes begin in a week, syllabi are due and I have spent the last two hours focusing on all the important stuff: checking email, contemplating the idea of Internet dating, chatting with my dear attorney friend about his letter of recommendation to law school, oh and making a blog entry. Haven't quite gotten around to working on the syllabi, but then I technically have 119 hours until I start teaching.

And people wonder why I am at work until 7 PM each night.