My Cardboard Balcony

So I had a meeting today. Specifically, a meeting with a rep from the design program I'll be using at my new job for the school yearbook. Like I said in my last introspection, being the yearbook adviser can be very, very stressful. But I learned a lot today. Namely, what program we'll be using, how it works, how I can structure my lesson plans, and how we can really delve into the yearbook process. I also got to look at both good examples of yearbooks and bad examples of yearbooks. The biggest issue is that the public school I'm working at hasn't had a consistent yearbook adviser in years. And consistency is a big necessity right now. That's what I want to give this school. I got really excited about yearbook this time around. It really pushed aside my anxiety, and I felt like, for the first time, I could really do this. That I could really be an effective teacher and help create an amazing book that reflects not just memories of the past year at school, but...

An Apocalyptic Toast by Belinda Roddie To the happy newlyweds! May they lovingly hunt zombies together.

No update on the OneWord website today. Oh, well!

I Wasn't Hungry by Belinda Roddie I wasn't hungry when I finished work and couldn't eat the meal my mother made so lovingly. I felt like such a jerk, but none of the food ever left my plate, and I excused myself to be alone, my stomach aching, throbbing like a drum with its skin pulled too tightly 'round the bone that held it all together. I knew some members of my family would worry about me, but my appetite was shot and had been for the past week. I could see how tired and weak I looked, yet if I thought too much about eating, the hunger I was wishing for would shrivel up and die.

"Lawrence!" shouted Lester. "Lawrence! We've had a breakthrough!" The fingers on the left hand of the subject - crooked and stiff - had twitched somewhat after the body had been placed on the bed. Lawrence stared. He had never detected motor responses in the specimen until now. He pushed his golden spectacles up the bridge of his long nose and wiped a rivulet of sweat threatening to escape from his forehead.

Bring It To A Boil by Belinda Roddie we drank homemade root beer made from the sassafras that your mama grows in Iowa before the summer scorches the bones that make up the ground your mama's recipe that came from her papa when he still cut up roots and wrapped them in paper towels like swaddling a newborn bundle of babies we drank it together molasses and spices molasses and kisses on ceramic mugs we drank it together molasses and spices something tells me your mama wouldn't take kindly to me sitting on your porch, leaving lip tattoos on your neck and chin something tells me your mama would smell the cinnamon on me the soda water and anise on me diluted but rich enough to catch in one nostril or the other all the kisses caught in between mouthfuls she doesn't need to know and the neighbors don't care we'll drink it together molasses and spices sassafras growing in an Iowan heat wave we'll drink it together molasses and ...

Alan wouldn't stay at the Grand Pearl Hotel because he was absolutely certain that there were ghosts haunting it. Specifically, he thought they'd haunt any room he frequented. "They like odd room numbers," he told me over beer, "and I always get rooms with an odd number. I'm not risking staying in Room 217 or Room 425 and getting attacked by hungry ghosts." I stared. "I'm pretty sure ghosts don't eat people." "Then what do they eat, Lorraine? Tacos?!"