halloween and spooky things...

it all started at 8. an assortment of characters showed up: kittens, rednecks, midgets with attitude, ewoks, and more.

it was, simply put, a hot mess.

we managed a few group pics.
the kitten.
the redneck. check out that mullet.

the goth fairy.
the american loathing, wine guzzling, chain-smoking frenchie.

the mad scientist who's trying not to laugh.
the midget with 'tude.
the midget giving the fairy a little thrill.

the ewok.

my creation. six legs. oh, yes. six legs.

happy halloween, all!

do you know what day it is?

beaming.

my best friend was on the news this morning.

not him exactly, but his work.

he's designing the interiors of the new UNT stadium, and they discussed the project this morning on the news.

i'm proud.

check it out here.

aim for their heads, baby jesus.

yup. you read that correctly. aim for their heads, baby jesus. awesome. truly awesome.

labels.

why is it that we are a people obsessed with labels? we constantly label ourselves, other people, pets, and objects with arbitrary titles. why do we do this?

i'm very quick to label myself: english professor, student for life, baker, seamstress, mommy to five dogs, photographer, and many more. but, none of these self-inflicted labels is all-encompassing of who i am. yes, i am an english professor, and i spend a great deal of my time manipulating the language and literature, but that is just a fraction of the whole.

i am not a person who generally enjoys being placed in a box of any kind. i reject the notion that i can be "figured out". no person is simple enough to be figured out--we are all of us complex, unique individuals with many layers. onions, if you will.

do labels help us relate to one another? do they make us feel more comfortable?

i have no answers but will wear my labels proudly--all the while smirking at the truth i'm privy to: no amount of labels can tell my whole story.

in the words of walt whitman, "i am large, i contain volumes".

eight years later.

it’s september 11th. that thought has been in the back of my head all day today.

it started this morning on my drive to school. i still listen to the same radio station that i did eight years ago. i vividly remember listening the morning of september 11, 2001. that morning, as i drove from denton to dallas, stuck in traffic and very upset, they were my tether to the normal world--the world i would never see again. this morning that same radio show played a tribute that featured some of the audio from that morning so long ago. i teared up.

on campus, a few colleagues and i took a few moments to remember the day. we discussed where we were when we got the news and that, for our young students, that may be the only day in their lives so far where they remember exactly where they were.

in class it happened again. it seems that my september 11th experience has always revolved around the classroom. it’s where i was when i got the news, and it’s where i’ve been every year since.

later with my friends in a semi-crowded theater, we watched a movie that started with a plane crash. again i was reminded of the date.

i’m not saying anything significant by stating that i don’t think i’ll ever have a september 11th where i don’t have these thoughts in the back of my mind. and i think that’s a good thing.

remembering that day makes me appreciate the little things more. running through the rain on a warm summer night, the smell of coffee brewing in the morning, the feeling of finding a perfect new book. all of these insignificant things seem more vivid today.

why is it so easy to forget how lucky we have it? to take pleasure in the simple things?

i don’t know the answers to those questions, but i do know that at least today, september 11th, i do a better job of appreciating the small things.

i hate banks.

and bankers. and everyone having to do with banks and bankers. they all suck. every last one of them.

the closing on my dad's family home looks like it's been delayed again because the buyer's bank it too f-ing stupid to figure the paperwork out.

we are SOOOOOOOOOO tired of dealing with all the real estate/legal hoopla that is going into this sale. we've been under contract since the beginning of july and were supposed to close fifteen days after the contract date. it's september now. that's way more than fifteen days.

for the love of god, i hope it ends soon (like sometime this week)!

so there you have it. bankers suck.