Because Everything Is Not What It Usually Is, and Because We Are Trying to Maintain Normalcy, I Write You This Post

This day is brought to you by Glamis, who refuses to let anything go forward as normal because, well, she's a canine of habit, has her needs, and doesn't care about day-to-day endeavors of human beings (including Election Day). Even as I type  she is curled up beside me with a sort-of gurgling snoring because she's upset I disrupted her world yesterday.

First, a plant (or two). In friendship, I adopted and gave shelter to several porch plants fromPam's beach patio because the frost is upon us and she doesn't want her green friends to die. I don't mind the indoor life so I took them in. Glamis is scared of them. What are these tentacle things growing forth?

Okay, let her be.

Then, last nigh, Ger Duany, William King, Jessica Baldizon and I recorded our NCTE session with Christopher Myers, and Glamis did not want to share the stage. I even prepared. I got out the vacuum cleaner so she would leave me alone as we recorded. I wanted to capture the session on the porch, but the lighting was bad and I was afraid of traffic noise. So, I thought, if the vacuum cleaner is a part of my recording studio in the living room, I can get Glamis to leave me alone for a while. 

It sort of worked, until I was watching the recording and removed the vacuum. Glamis wanted to be sure she was 100'% involved. Lucky for me, the recording was done, but then while I was trying to rewatch and upload to the NCTE website, I had to deal with her climbing underneath, within, and later upon everything I was doing.

Okay, Election Day. I'm not sure I want to know what will come of any of this. What I do know is that I loved talking with this team of presenters for NCTE because it is what I believe in with all of my might. Belonging, Being, Extending, and Walking Toward the Rising Sun: 7 Years of Writing with Immigrant and Refugee Youth

Literacy. Opportunities. Human Togetherness. Democracy. Equity. Diversity. 

Those are my platforms. I will vote every year in support of anyone who will work to support educators who work in the diverse, heterogeneous settings of our American classrooms. I want to know who is going to respect, uphold, and support everything written on the Statue of Liberty, and who will put their mouth towards funding national programs that give kids, ALL KIDS, a chance. 

It's that easy for me. You stand for love and possibility or you stand for hate and distraction. 

I never wanted to see our nation like this, but it is what it is (channeling Aristotle without the sophistication here). I'm sort of a cynic, but Pandora did leave us HOPE. That one evil that gets me every time.

We shall see.