Balls, bread bags and a big old storm . . .

Hi you!


Just when I thought it was safe to celebrate the Patriots' AFC win and upcoming Super Bowl, here comes #DeflateGate.  See Twitter.  Really?  The nonsense continues as attackers eat TV time with assertions of guilt:  They say Brady must have requested the football changes (for those outside of sports craziness, you know the claim --- the air pressure for balls used by the Pats in the game against the Colts were judged below required limits).  Really, again?  Why would someone this good at the game do something that could jeopardize a hot season record?  The Pats are clever and deflation would be a rookie mistake.  Balls.

And now on to BREAD BAGS!  After the recent State of the Union speech, the Republican response by Senator Ernst replayed her campaign screeds.  Those ad-bits were all about her humble childhood; one so pure and poor that she had to put BREAD BAGS over her one pair of shoes during wet weather.  Pretty soggy stuff.  What was relevant about her personal anecdote?  What on earth did it have to do with a response to the SOTU?  It made as much sense as #DeflateGate.

And additionally, winter is real.  A serious storm is on its way to the northeast.  Weather folks say is will be equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.  Ms. Ernst should send her bread bags up that way.

Balls, bread bags and a big old storm.

That is the buzz this day as I do the usual avoidance of serious class preparation for Composition lectures tomorrow.  Why be serious when I can be . . .  me?

Love and kisses to all Brady supporters and the sweet Northeast in general.  Get out your bread bags!

Joyce

P.S. - A cat has adopted me.  Not feral, Gato (his new name) wandered onto the property weeks ago and meowed at me until I gave him milk.  Now, he has a fur sleep-house, the best cat food, entertainment (he likes to watch me dance), toys, the screened in porch as Gato's Ghetto, and the entire yard as his personal litter box.  Me.  With a living creature who loosely depends on me.  The pressure!

Speak . . .

And I believe that is all I need to say this day.

Love,
Joyce

2015 underway . . .

Dear You:

2015 has a wonderful look to it.  2. 0. 1. 5.  Math whizzes among you may understand its allure.

Here in Panama City Beach/Inlet Beach, foggy chill is drifting in, bringing wintry temperatures . . . at least according to north FL standards.

Reading Chauncey DeVega's blog, I was amused and stirred by his thoughts on resolutions for a new year.  So often, my resolutions are simple, like "to-do" lists.  I try not to overshoot or make promises that I can't execute.  But this year, I want to take another resolution approach.

Back to Mr. DeVega and his recent holiday post.  He writes: "Some folks believe that I am "angry". As a working class black American, my 2015 resolution is that I promise to be even more angry whenever possible and appropriate."

That is just one cool thing DeVega says, and I am "resolving" inspired by his point.  So, for 2015, I promise to:
1.  Be even more disruptive at the college whenever things look a little too much like "Office Space".
2.  Be less accepting of idiocy - everywhere.
3.  Be continually impatient for change, social and political, in my USA.
4.  Be insatiable.
5.  Be TEFLON when it comes to work-hustling, family blow-back, or local redneck foolishness!

BE!

I could share my DO list too, but it wouldn't mean much.  I can always DO, but BEING is often much more difficult.

Cheers and kisses . . . enjoy the NFL playoffs (love you Patriots + Tom Brady & Giselle), the comforts found on cold nights, and the comedy we will all soon enjoy provided by the next race for the presidency/2016.  The Republican contest should be quite a show!   (PS: Why won't they give me Rand Paul? Well, that's another blog entry . . . )

Joyce Joyful Nuevo Nuevo!!

Approaching 2015 . . .

Hello Dear You:

What hasn't happened recently?  Confusion and reaction abound.  Citizens downed by certain police powers and today, two innocent Brooklyn cops taken out.

But as we approach another new year, there is something not confusing:
1:  A president who is leaning in (love the action to open up Cuba to us all).
2:  A hint that a femme could be the next POTUS.
3.  A recovering economy . . . and an environment with many active guardians, but who knows what the new all Republican House/Senate will damage.
4.  A "me, me, me" in unbelievably solid health.

Me, me, me.  Another semester ends at the current, local college.  Here in the Florida Panhandle, I do face continuing confusion too.  Why don't students read?  Why do some colleagues have a limited sense of humor?  And why do I keep doing this?

Whatever.

A chill comes this evening, and I am too far north of the tropics.  But soon . . .

Cheers to all things wild and wonderful :)

Kisses -
Joyce

Thanksgiving here . . . 5 months later!

   
Dear You:

Ms. Kim feeding folks at the LA Mission.  She may not have broken the internet with her recent photo deluge, but she is breaking preconceived notions.  Of course, the critical "they" no doubt say she did/does this for publicity.  Forget them.  And, once again returning to the blog after months of "teach that lit, grade those compositions, cha-cha-cha", I wish we could forget these recent events:

1.   A midterm election that went so RED the President is having to executive-order his way through the last two years of his term.
2.   A polar blast reaching down to FLA and stressing the stalwart city of Buffalo, no less.
3.   A horror -- journalists and aid workers murdered in Syria/Iraq.
4.   A rush of more techno-living and even more techno-failures.

Get off the grid.  Oh, wait.  I am composing on the grid.  Maybe that will fail too if Net Neutrality actions don't swat back corporate controls.

So, on the lighter side:

Tom Brady and the fabulous Patriots are on a cool wining streak.  This compensates for my bachelor's alum college (Auburn - those warring eagles) not making it to this new NCAA playoff situation, losing some tight contests.  But that is all about other people playing and me watching.  My sport continues to be the Hunger Games of adjuncting in higher education.  I must be high to keep slamming through this.  Upside:  fun students who talk some good talk.  Downside:  less than stellar "customers"/students who get to evaluate ME and getting all twitchy about the next semester's assignment.  Nothings changes.  Yes, the definition of insanity is . . .

What can we/I do to make everything possible and everyone unchained?
I live in another dimension during pop-soundtrack inspired run/walks.  There, on the beach and in my head, everything is possible and everyone is off the chain.
Why doesn't everyone want to live there?

The book (memoir/comedy/polemic) remains a non-start, and I still haven't learned conversational Spanish.  Blame it on the Panhandle life with much yard work, maintenance demands and driving time to get anywhere.

First things first --- get through another required jolly X'mas and put that book and Espanol on yet another New Year to do list.  2015.  Hell Yes to another year!

Time to primp and moisturize before Sunday Night Football.  "What were once vices are now habits."  Who said that?

Kisses -
The Joyce

59! I am now 59! Feelin' the "I'm ageless" denial rush!

Dear you . . .

Check out Gisele's fabulous buzz cut!  She look like Tom's twin:


What a lovely June . . . students in Composition and Women's Lit this summer are quite sharp and often fun.

But forget about them!  I am now 59 :0

When you approach 50, you start getting mail from AARP.  When you approach 60, you start getting mail from LIFE ALERT.  ("I've fallen and I can't get up.")

That's all I have to say.
Kisses -
Joyce

Happy Anniversary - one year in this zip code . . . the Panhandle chronicles!

Dear you:

Eve of Cinco de Mayo, I realize I have been here in Panama City Beach, as resident, as random adjunct faculty function, etc. for a year.   Well, my my my.

The pop-Artemis photo pasted in this entry conveys my "neighborhood" life:  the local non-workers/non-participants in anything larger than their property, annoy me and want to ruin the land.  Case in point, the part-time residents in the condo to my west (intrusive and bizarre) are obsessed with trimming the wild shrub oaks that they can simply see from their paved and dead backyard space.  Oh hell no!  This is my screening device so they can't see into my porch or windows and, more importantly, they are bird havens.  This couple, too, loves to drive back and forth in front of my beach house when the road is flooded by climate-change prompted water (I had to cancel a class this week due to deluge and road dangers) and push the crap into my yard.  Nice.  Total assholes.

In a larger sense, this Artemis avatar is my approach now as I continue to live in a strange familiar yet unfamiliar zone:  what is up with students who don't read, professors who clock-in and don't revolutionize (or unionize, but that is another story), and people in bad bathing suits?  The hilarity will continue as I close out final exams, submit grades and focus on two simple priorities:

1.  Killing the Buzz-Killers (or not being affected by them in any way)
2.  Getting a "real" job here in the minimum wage land.

Do they make workers at Bed, Bath and Beyond wear stupid uniforms?  Bad pants and polo shirts?    Let the tragic fashion begin!

The world rolls on ---- Putin in Ukraine, kidnapped girls in Nigeria, and constipated-conservative-politics baffling us all.

Turn your phones off everyone and dive in the Gulf of Mexico while you can.

 XO for now -
Ms. Fleming