flaneuse.org

Over the last few weeks, my past has caught up with me — namely, Facebook has hooked together my middle and high school years with who I am today and I live in constant fear of a photo of me with a wall of bangs and heavy eyeliner in my Depeche Mode/Cure/Gothic days. (God help us all). Yesterday — or maybe the day before — a photo surfaced from a 70s party in the early 2000s in Nashville: I’m with my first husband, wearing a minidress and orange go-go boots with straight blonde hair to my shoulders. Nice. I’ve thought about “un-tagging” myself in it but other than the silly outfit, it’s not too bad. The funny thing is how all of the people in the shot have changed — we’re teachers, professors, researchers, managers, scientists, public health administrators, mothers, fathers, you name it. What was silly and funny in our 20s is already nostalgic. Does this mean I’m getting old? Argh.

OK, it’s not much, but I have managed to work on the book at least a little bit most of the days I have been home (once we moved in — another story altogether about moving in five days over Christmas). The book is going slow, but I am still plugging away at it and praying my editor meant late spring when he said spring. On the good side, I have also been visiting websites and talking with teachers who are using blogs, wikis, and digital storytelling with their students — in the last week I gave two workshops to teachers and met more who are doing really cool stuff. So… onward!

Well, thanks to a leak that turned into a downpour in our apartment on Christmas Eve, we ended up having to move in just a few days — most of which I was in Colorado. Nothing like a move to set up a new year on just the right foot. Everything is in the new place and we’re down to hanging pictures and patching and painting the places that need it and I am finally back to work — all good things. Let’s hope this Spring brings all the things we all need — deadlines met, balance in life.