Day 2

3:57 pm

Early this morning, the sun rose.
I was taking the trash out and saw this out of the corner of my eye... had to take a snapshot. I like how the screen from the window blurs a bit, and the buildings and trees on the bottom have an early morning feel to them as though they haven't awoken yet, which is true. But the sky's awake, burning in the horizon.

I guess, so far, it's been a taking-the-trash-out kinda day, in the spirit of cleaning since I took a good amount of my working day to put some grades into the books. I'm trying not to count the days left allowing it to happen on its own.

It's also my brother's 32nd birthday today. I can't believe that he and I are in our thirties. It seems not too long ago that I was asking him if I can sleep next to him in his bed because I was having nightmares. It wasn't until around middle school when we started becoming our own selves. He being the oldest started first of course, going over his own friends' houses and parties. I tagged along when I could, but eventually I found my own ground. All in all, it would be impossible to tell the story of my life without my brother. It would be impossible to explain the purpose behind every breath I've taken in life without crediting my brother to some extent... my brother, mother and father. It became a cliche quickly for me to tell my mom that she's become a teacher through my acts of teaching since she is so much a part of my being. My brother's the
same way, which is why I'm giving him a birthday card all of my students this year signed.

The Front

The Middle

The Back

I'd never had a class do this, oddly enough, so I think he'll get a kick out of it... we'll see. Dinner tonight at Iggies, a delicious gourmet pizza shop that my stomach grumbled for as I type this now. (( http://www.iggiespizza.com/ )) Highly recommend it. Seriously.

I also had a conversation today with Tori about writing. She's looking to get a movie submitted in the Howard County Film Festival. The film needs to be 3 to 10 minutes in length, which sounds difficult to me to have such a small amount of time to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Tori's planning on writing a script, and I bounced an idea or two off her. She said that last year's winner was a music video about a girl having heart surgery. A music video sounds like a cop-out to me, but I assume it's topnotch. I mentioned to her one of my favorite things I've ever written, a short story in a college class about a boy and girl who have some intimate history out picking cherries illegally in a field. There's a subtle tension between the two and suddenly the owner, an old man, shows up with a shotgun. The girl lies their way out of it, and the boy, hearing his love lie, realizes that she's been lying to him. I really like it and talking about it and thinking about it is encouraging me to ruffle through some folders to find it and revise it. My professor definitely liked it and I'd certainly offer the idea to Tori. I think it would make a cool, smart film done right. Now, where could it be...? Where could a story written ten years ago be placed?

That sounds like a story in itself...