Hello Dear Readers,
So the kids are partaking in "Independent Reading," one of the many pieces of the post-modern curriculum puzzle. Kids are "empowered" to select any book they want, provided they can find it among the 8 titles displayed in the classroom library, and by displayed, I mean face down on the floor, under a student's desk. The Wombury is a fan of Indie Reading. And he's reading quite a number of books as well, including A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck. It's all about Robert growing up in Vermont, living on a farm, dealing with life, death, and the Shaker Way. The Shakers were an oddball extremist sect of puritanism that eschewed all things frivolous, great and small, up to and including sex. (Is sex frivolous? Or just foreplay?). There's this collective ethos that forbids accepting payment for services rendered if said services are deemed to be what any good neighbor should be doing in the first place. "No thank you, brother Josiah, can't accept that sack of potatoes just for deliverin' your newborn daughter; I'd just done what any good neighbor would do."
I'm thinking of the Shaker Way because, as the Wombury types this posting down here in the teacher's computer room, ("the sweat box"),
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Day After Insomia
Hello Dear Readers,
Insomia last night. Went to bed at 10:21, tossed and turn, found this online radio station called Illinois Street Lounge, with the running theme of Classic Bachelor Pad. it's like elevator music on Jazz steroids. And I was thirsty. But I didn't want to leave the cave, since that would've necessitated a stop and chat with Ed and Lisa, who sounded like they were having some kind of intimate discussion, which made dropping off even more difficult. So as the hours whittled away I listened for Ed and Lisa's conversation to die down. Around 1 am I woke up and made myself a drink. At 4 I awoke again and spent an hour listening to Motown and collecting 37 confessions on Craigslist.
Until then,
The Wombury
Insomia last night. Went to bed at 10:21, tossed and turn, found this online radio station called Illinois Street Lounge, with the running theme of Classic Bachelor Pad. it's like elevator music on Jazz steroids. And I was thirsty. But I didn't want to leave the cave, since that would've necessitated a stop and chat with Ed and Lisa, who sounded like they were having some kind of intimate discussion, which made dropping off even more difficult. So as the hours whittled away I listened for Ed and Lisa's conversation to die down. Around 1 am I woke up and made myself a drink. At 4 I awoke again and spent an hour listening to Motown and collecting 37 confessions on Craigslist.
Until then,
The Wombury
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
My Therapist Says I Have a "Regulatory" Problem
Hello Dear Readers,
First, the Wombury wants to wish you a happy summer full of hand-holding and bathing suits and lake swimming and dewey grass clippings and meat grilling and tomato picking and lilac sniffing and the wombury's favorite: sandal wearing. The WOmbury truly loves sandal wearing. not his own sandal-wearing, (although for a man as rugged as the wombury is, he does have rather shapely dogs)-but no, of course I speak of the ladies. love the ladies in their summer clothes. The breezy linen numbers, the backless numbers, the Ellie May numbers with the gingham top and the skin-tight jeans fastened with a clutch of rope. In homage to the sartorial splendors of the season, the wombury has posted Mr. Bruce Springsteen's fine track, "Girls in their Summer Clothes" from his most recent album. One note: if it's summer why does it look so damn cold along the jersey shore? Why is Bruce wearing a pea coat? Or is it Pee coat? or is it P Coat? Must look this up.
IN OTHER news, the Wombury's mental therapist told him he has a "regulatory" problem. She says, "You go too far, too fast," She didn't give any examples, as this was pretty much the last thing she said before the session was finished. (Isn' t that a freqently spoofed stereotype of analysis? "And our time's up and by the way you're a latent homosexual. See you next week!"). Even though she didn't illuminate her comments, I assume she's referring to the Wombury's penchant for asking women to marry him after one date, especially when drunk. She's probably also referring to the way he starts huge projects and then doesn't complete them.
While it's a kind of relief to have a name for a problem, it's a little lame, don't you think? Like searching in vain for the Easter Egg with the 5 dollar bill and finding the one with a plastic rosary instead. Why couldn't it be bi-polar disorder or clinical depression or the old standby, "manic-depression"? I even tried to convince her I had 40 percent of the characteristics shared by sociopaths, which she summarily denounced. Later she mentioned OCD, and before the words left my mouth she said, "you don't have it, and you aren't 'it'".
The wombury is fairly positive Dr Z just sort of pulled "Regulatory" out of her Freudian ass and made the ad hoc decision that "Regulatory" is a psychological problem.
Until then,
The WOmbury
First, the Wombury wants to wish you a happy summer full of hand-holding and bathing suits and lake swimming and dewey grass clippings and meat grilling and tomato picking and lilac sniffing and the wombury's favorite: sandal wearing. The WOmbury truly loves sandal wearing. not his own sandal-wearing, (although for a man as rugged as the wombury is, he does have rather shapely dogs)-but no, of course I speak of the ladies. love the ladies in their summer clothes. The breezy linen numbers, the backless numbers, the Ellie May numbers with the gingham top and the skin-tight jeans fastened with a clutch of rope. In homage to the sartorial splendors of the season, the wombury has posted Mr. Bruce Springsteen's fine track, "Girls in their Summer Clothes" from his most recent album. One note: if it's summer why does it look so damn cold along the jersey shore? Why is Bruce wearing a pea coat? Or is it Pee coat? or is it P Coat? Must look this up.
IN OTHER news, the Wombury's mental therapist told him he has a "regulatory" problem. She says, "You go too far, too fast," She didn't give any examples, as this was pretty much the last thing she said before the session was finished. (Isn' t that a freqently spoofed stereotype of analysis? "And our time's up and by the way you're a latent homosexual. See you next week!"). Even though she didn't illuminate her comments, I assume she's referring to the Wombury's penchant for asking women to marry him after one date, especially when drunk. She's probably also referring to the way he starts huge projects and then doesn't complete them.
While it's a kind of relief to have a name for a problem, it's a little lame, don't you think? Like searching in vain for the Easter Egg with the 5 dollar bill and finding the one with a plastic rosary instead. Why couldn't it be bi-polar disorder or clinical depression or the old standby, "manic-depression"? I even tried to convince her I had 40 percent of the characteristics shared by sociopaths, which she summarily denounced. Later she mentioned OCD, and before the words left my mouth she said, "you don't have it, and you aren't 'it'".
The wombury is fairly positive Dr Z just sort of pulled "Regulatory" out of her Freudian ass and made the ad hoc decision that "Regulatory" is a psychological problem.
Until then,
The WOmbury
Monday, May 26, 2008
Just another White Man Running Through the Bronx
Hello Dear Readers,
Memorial Day. Spent the majority of the weekend away from the Wombury Cave here in the South Bronx. Even my feline girlfriend Sasha seems to have noticed the change in my behavioral pattern. To compensate for what in my mind was yet another relapse, the Wombury is going on a run to Van Cortland Park, 6 miles north of the WOmbury Cave, situated on the border between Westchester and the Bronx. The plan is for the Wombury to run through the park to observe the borderlands, to see if hordes of wealthy white people are milling about like sheep on the other side of that neatly dotted line. Perhaps I will wave to them and they to the Wombury, and we will see recognize signs of familiarity in our faces. Then I will fling excrement at them.
Until then,
The Wombury
Memorial Day. Spent the majority of the weekend away from the Wombury Cave here in the South Bronx. Even my feline girlfriend Sasha seems to have noticed the change in my behavioral pattern. To compensate for what in my mind was yet another relapse, the Wombury is going on a run to Van Cortland Park, 6 miles north of the WOmbury Cave, situated on the border between Westchester and the Bronx. The plan is for the Wombury to run through the park to observe the borderlands, to see if hordes of wealthy white people are milling about like sheep on the other side of that neatly dotted line. Perhaps I will wave to them and they to the Wombury, and we will see recognize signs of familiarity in our faces. Then I will fling excrement at them.
Until then,
The Wombury
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