This wasn't a quick decision--it's one I'd been mulling for months.  I started this Vox blog in November '06.  It was never meant to be my full-time blog.  I started it as a side blog just because I thought it was kind of a cool interface.  When I began to feel suffocated at my TypePad blog, Vox was an easy escape.

Vox, you've been good to me, but I miss the flexibility I had at TypePad.  I miss being able to have the kinds of sidebars I want.  I need to move on for other reasons, as well.  I toyed with going with Wordpress, but it just didn't feel right (at least not right now). 

On Saturday I cleaned up and organized a bunch of paperwork at home.  I completely de-cluttered the top of our desk...and I can't tell you what a difference it made in how I felt sitting down at the computer.  That process, combined with reconnecting with a dear blog friend yesterday--and where one of her posts led me--made the time feel right to make the change.

So, without further ado, here's tongue and groove.  And if you're wondering about the name, it's what I wanted Jeffrey to call his jazz trio when we lived in Portland, but he went for a self-titled group...so I'm claiming it.  Tongue and groove is a method of fitting similar objects together.  That's what I'll try to do there.  You'll find links in the sidebar to , Moojo Cafe, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Bloggers for Darfur...and, oh yeah, I started a tumble log awhile back. ;)

Those of you who choose to follow me to the new site, thanks for hanging with me.  xoxo

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Been having some computer issues this morning (nothing major...just the universe's way of telling me to get off this machine).  ;)  I wanted to bring you up to date.  Around midnight on Thursday night, our school board voted 3-2 to keep our secondary schools configured the way they are now for one more year.  What that means is that the 9th graders will remain at the junior highs instead of making our high school a 4-year one, and all three junior highs (including the one where I work) will remain open.

I barely had time to let the reality of that late-night decision sink in though because first thing Friday morning the principal called those of us who work in the classified union into her office to remind us that cuts to our union are coming next.  I don't know what that will mean for my job.  The next board meeting is April 17 and I don't know what will be on the agenda.

I appreciate everyone's support through what's been an anxious couple of months.  Now that the school has been saved, I need to turn my focus inward and figure out what *I* want to do next (school) year.  Because I don't want to put a lot of energy into trying to keep some sort of (even cobbled-together) position there for next year if my heart's not in it. 

I'm feeling WAY behind personally...with online stuff...going through paperwork at home...we need to still do our tax returns...and getting myself fully healthy again.  (We'll see if my brother's home remedy of local honey makes a difference in my hay fever--just bought a jar at the farmer's market.)  ;)  I need to get back into my own good graces (if that makes sense).  Not to mention that it's the 5th and I haven't written a single poem yet for National Poetry Month. 

I'm craving some decompression time this weekend.  Quiet time...looking inward.  I did want to mention though that today is my 'sobriety birthday'--18 years sober today.  That's my proudest accomplishment--because no one or no thing can ever take that away from me. 

I woke this morning thinking about trust.  I'm having a hard time trusting people in my 'real' life--getting burned a lot lately.  I fear this will sound horribly cynical and I honestly don't mean it that way:  I all too easily forget that big-hearted actions tend not to accompany small mindedness.  And the result is that I end up feeling hurt.  I tend to want to offer things up coming from a big-hearted place and it can feel painful when one's heart offerings are rejected or not even acknowledged.  I'm not going through any heavy-duty thing--if you were a fly on the wall, you might even wonder what I'm referring to.  It's just this:  We can't make people receive gifts...we can only offer them.  Sometimes the lack of receptivity can start to wear us down.  Come late summer, I'd like to find myself in a place where my gifts are welcomed.  That's all. 

And now I'm going to step away from the computer and enjoy some of this sunshine.  Have a wonderful weekend!

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I'm not going to officially do NaPoWriMo this year.  I plan to write plenty of poetry this month--just don't want to feel bound by any 'rules.'  I meant to get a post up on the 1st, but alas, having been up since 2:30 and feeling like my allergies had morphed into a summer cold, I went to bed early...and slept hard until J woke me (which is highly unusual since I'm almost always up well before he leaves for work). 

As usual, any poems I post will be over on Moojo Cafe.  (And since I'm running short on time this morning, there's still not one for April...yet.)  ;)

I'll start off my April poem-nanza by sharing some links...

The Academy of American Poets has great resources at its poets.org site.  Examples...

national poetry calendar and national poetry map (find events near you)

Download a copy of the '08 poster here.

Sign up to receive a poem a day in your IN box.

Check out new poetry books released this Spring here.

Connect with poets.org in a variety of ways to stay informed year-round.

But mostly April is all about POETRY...reading it...writing it...sharing it...savoring it.  Happy National Poetry Month!

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Earth Hour - March 29

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I didn't go on the cruise.  Please don't leave me any "Oh, I'm so sorry!" comments.  I don't mean that in a harsh way--I just mean that I didn't go because I was really anxious about flying with my ears still being kind of plugged up.  I've had horrible hay fever--the pollen is so thick right now that the cars are covered in it.  The artist's manager who'd handled my arrangements understood.  Told me he suffers from bad allergies, too, and has had a couple of flights where he thought his eardrums would explode upon descent.  They're finally starting to open up and I simply didn't want to mess with flights.  So don't cry for me, Argentina. ;)  I get the weekend to just...exhale...move to my own rhythms...have some space...  And all of it is much needed after feeling so stressed out the past few weeks. 

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On a separate note (and I haven't even told Jeffrey about this yet--he was gone most of yesterday and this morning we were focused on getting him packed and to the airport)...  By accident (via reading a link and then being reminded of someone and Googling him) I learned yesterday that one of my oldest, dearest friends died last summer.  I was devastated to read that news online.  I hadn't spoken to him in years, but he still pops up in my thoughts occasionally.  It gets worse.  What I also saw online was that four years before his death, he'd been beaten by two police officers in the town where he'd lived for decades.  (A very liberal, white university town...just like this one.)  He wasn't charged with a crime and when he took the city to court, he won a quarter million dollar lawsuit.  But his injuries had led to surgery and left him with a permanent limp.  I (obviously) had no idea that he'd been through all of that (we were off the mainland during that time).  It broke my heart to read about it.  I'd known him for 35 years.  He was my first love.  Imagine for a moment your first love.  Now imagine that person being dragged from their car and beaten by two people with metal clubs, all while the person stood there open-palmed--taking, not resisting, the blows. 

I'm sorry to be sharing such upsetting news, but it's been a helluva 24 hours.  Canceling my getaway...and then being utterly shocked and upset over that news.  I try not to talk too often on this blog about politics or issues or race--at least I try to bring them up less than I did at my previous blog.  But this is the reality I live in.  As I've said before, I'm supporting Barack Obama for President because I honestly believe he's the best candidate with the best character for this critical time for our nation.  I'm not voting for him because he's half-black.  But his race is an important part of who he is, and I personally haven't spoken to anyone who wasn't moved by the speech he gave on race on March 18th.  (If you didn't see it, I encourage you to join the more than 3-1/2 million people who've watched "A More Perfect Union" on YouTube here.)  Those of us who came of age in the early days of feminism (early 70's) have been seen to be disloyal to our sisterhood by not supporting Hillary Clinton.  Today The Root posted an extraordinary letter written by Alice Walker that so beautifully puts that into perspective.  I encourage you to read it here.

This morning, already weepy over missing my getaway with my sweetie and my heart aching over thinking of my dear friend being beaten, I watched this video from last May by slam poet Darian Dauchan..."Damn you, Barack Obama..."  (It includes profanity, but I think you can handle it.)  And I broke down.  This one's for you, A, wherever you are...

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Ze Frank is asking Twitterers to tweet photos of "little you"...here's mine...

age 4

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Tavis Smiley Twittered that he has Louise Hay on his show tonight (Tuesday).  That got me excited since I'm a long-time Hay fan.  My mother first gave me a copy of Louise's tiny book, Heal Your Body, decades ago.  I still have a copy which can often by found on my bedside table.  Louise later wrote You Can Heal Your Lifeo which is still a bestseller.  It incorporated the metaphysical causations and accompanying affirmations of Heal Your Body. I've owned several copies of You Can Heal Your Life and always seem to give them away--in a moment when it seems like someone else needs it more than me.  It's a wonderful book.

So imagine my joy at discovering that there's now a You Can Heal Your Life movie.  Yay!  I had no idea and it's been out about six months.  You can click on that link to watch now for $4.95 or to purchase a DVD.  I think the reason the marketing explosion of all things "The Secret" kind of irked me is because it wasn't new information--just new packaging.  Louise and others before her have been talking about those ideas for decades.

Here's the trailer for the You Can Heal Your Life movie:

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In other news...

I've had horrible hay fever.  Louise Hay believe causations for hay fever are:  "Emotional congestion. Fear of the calendar.  A belief in persecution.  Guilt."  Let's see...feeling torn about what to do about my job...worrying over finances and the possibility of being out of a job in a few months...feeling resentful over nasty things coworkers have done to me...feeling bad that I maybe don't want to work at a school anymore.  So I'd say that's a check...check...check...and check.  And the pollen counts aren't helping.  ;)

We had a lovely Easter dinner at my brother's house.  We've had glorious sunny weather, although we're expecting some showers on Wednesday.  Went for a great walk late Monday morning through the nearly-deserted university campus.  I'd like to say I've been plowing through all the spring cleaning I wanted to do, but Monday was a bit of a lost day.  I napped away most of the afternoon in an allergy haze--but I'm feeling better today on that front.

Haven't written any poetry.  In all honesty, I'm just trying to decompress a bit...and let go of the 'shoulds.'

Hope you're enjoying your week.  xoxo

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at downtown rally to save our school

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passage

I can tell you the exact date this photo was taken without looking at the details:  March 30, 2005.  We spent our last full day on St. Thomas acting like complete tourists--and it was one of the best days we had in the five years we lived there.  This is a side entrance to a complex of shops and restaurants in Charlotte Amalie (downtown St. Thomas) just a few blocks from my old office.  We'd sold our Honda Accord to one of J's musician friends and he'd picked it up the day before.  So on our last day we toodled around the island on open-air taxis--it was fabulous.  The items we were keeping had been shipped to my brother's house, our bags were packed and we gave ourselves an entire day to just play.  (We shot a lot of pictures that day.)  ;)  We flew out the next morning on a flight to Sacramento headed for a new life in my home state of California.

I apologize for going so long between posts.  I apologize for not getting caught up this weekend on reading all of your blogs (that was my intention but it didn't happen).  I'm kind of in that in-between place...a sort of limbo...a waiting...about to enter a passageway...but not yet having crossed the threshold...

This has been a remarkable week in some ways, filled with some unexpected (personal) highs and also some sadness (as some of our beloved teachers got pink slips).  We found ourselves being discussed on NPR's "All Things Considered" last week.  (They did a story about the budget crisis in this district, focusing mostly on our small technical high school.  Thanks to Sam for letting me know about it.)  The NBC station in Sacramento did a story on their evening news the other night.  There have been countless Letters to the Editor written to our local newspaper, blog posts and comments written in support of keeping the school open, and a rally scheduled to take place Tuesday afternoon outside the school district headquarters.  But it may be too late--at least it appears that way.  Closure of our school is on the agenda for Thursday evening's school board meeting. 

It's been a week filled with much thinking and pondering and introspection...but very little personal resolution.  The school may or may not close; I may or may not have a job when my current contract expires.  What I'm grappling with is personal.  Even if my job remains safe, will I want to continue for another year?  This hasn't been a very stimulating year for me.  Removing my activities work from the equation reminded me why I'd gone out of my way to volunteer for so much of it in the first place.  I'm left with (what feels to me like) a shell of a job.  And yet it provides me with great benefits and I don't take that lightly, nor do I take lightly the incredible amount of time off I'm granted.  This is not a job I would step away from without some serious consideration, since it gives me so much freedom in some ways.  The decisions I'm grappling with fall outside of that--they're more about stepping out in a big picture sort of way.  And I got a lot of validation from the universe this week to do just that.  But old hermit habits die hard...  ;)

The photo above came to mind as I was standing in the shower today, as did the one below.  This one was taken from our campsite at Clear Lake State Park over the 4th of July our first summer here in 2005.  I loved that campsite--loved this view of the lake.  Thinking about this photo out of the blue today, all I could think was:  Leap, Marilyn!  The water's fine... 

Clear Lake State Park

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head case

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