Hello!

I'm absolutely loving teaching. My kids are so young and impressionable. It sometimes freaks me out when I think about all of them (there are nineteen) listening to me ramble on for an hour. I assigned their first essay today: a semiotic reading of an object that represents American culture. Hmmm....we'll see how that goes. I'm finally doing what I want to be doing for the first time in my life. Gosh, it took long enough. Hopefully there will be more classes for me next semester, or next year. I'm going to apply again at JMU. But in the meantime, I'm teaching, painting, and working on a novel. I've sent out a couple of stories, but haven't heard back yet. I discovered a cool podcast available from the New Yorker where writers read fiction that has been published in the New Yorker. It's really good. You should take a listen. My favorite story thus far is by John Cheever called "Reunion." I'm also thinking about starting to paint on canvas: big color fields painted with oils. I can picture them in my head, but I'm not too sure how to flush them out into colors and onto canvas. We'll see if that happes. Cyndi is working on a photo project. She is photographing every item she owns (like all our spices, one by one, every pair of underwear, our CDs, etc.). The show will be called "And This Isn't Everything." She wants to cover several gallery walls with prints of all our crap. It's a bit obsessive, but that's Cyndi! God bless her. She's also going to put it on YouTube as flashing images (about one per second) to some house music. I'll keep you informed when it happens.
Lily is liking Kindergarten. She's hot stuff now, and wants to pierce her ears so she'll "be the prettiest one there." Dear God have mercy on us all.

love to all,

Chad

books i've been reading lately

Catching Up

I've got new photos to share. We seem to be very busy here out west. It's not interesting busy stuff that you all care to hear about. Just a lot of walking (in prep for Marathon), get togethers with friends and family, and house stuff. We are getting very excited about all of your visits this fall. Chad, I wish we would be seeing you. Look foward to hearing from you all.

singles ad

hello hello. i finally got around to taking some more recent pictures of maddie. she's crawling, sort of. she kind of scoots around and drags one leg-slightly resembling a hermit crab. as you can see, she still loves baths and faking illnesses. this is begining to sound like a singles ad. she also loves poetry, long walks on the beach, candlight dinners and massages. um, anyway...i think its becoming apparent that i have nothing to say. i would be interested to know how chad's days as a professor are shaping up. oh and mom, i checked out your shadow puppets and they were pretty impressive. i now regret making fun of you, relentlessly for those several minutes. my deepest apologies.