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    Xenology: Fireworks 08/05/2008
    Liz takes pictures of the explosions overhead, an activity I give up on quickly. It doesn't matter that my camera has a setting specifically for this purpose. How can shining blurs express motion? Even were I to take video, it would be nothing like seeing this live. You can tell me you know just what I am talking about, but I can never truly know that. A unique, unrepeatable, indescribable moment is lost forever every time we exhale.


    Xenology: To Write Love On Her Arms 08/01/2008
    I have known too many people -- mostly women but also several students of both genders -- who cut themselves. My school never seemed to know how to handle them -- usually by washing bloody items and ignoring it happened -- but I tried responding with compassion. They didn't need someone to judge them or use their self-injury as blackmail. What they are going through is beyond my ken, but not beyond my caring. So they would talk to me about it, how it externalized the pain they felt inside, ...


    Xenology: Left Behind 07/31/2008
    This rejection stings because I'd dared to invest myself in planning my new life. I hoped that three years of mixed teaching experience -- some of it quite trying -- along with a Master's in education meant some district would snap me up as soon as I walked through the door. I had triangulated the best place to live, a half hour drive from everyone and everything I loved, a home that would put me in the heart of an active village, walking distance to groceries and socializing. I would teach ...


    Xenology: Apoptosis 07/24/2008
    In this month and a half on my own, with no teaching to force my schedule nor anyone living with me whom could influence my day, I have witnessed aspects of my psyche eroding because they were not given anything else to do. I am not used to the concept of free time, so conditioned to bells ringing or my beeping PDA alerting me of an appointment or obligation. I could sleep all day, if I so chose. I could do nothing but read and eat pancakes. One day, I biked to Connecticut for the bragging ...


    Xenology: Sunshine and the Storm Cloud 06/23/2008
    When released into Daniel and Hannah's apartment (I collectively call them Hanniel, I invite you to join me) I study everything as though it were carefully chosen to display their personalities and histories. Hannah's room is the messier of the two, to my initial surprise. As Daniel is not yet home, I don't feel I have permission to trespass beyond the threshold, but peruse Hannah's living space like an anthropologist allowed access to a temple. Her walls are papered with outlines for her ...


    Xenology: Apologia Pro Amor Sua 07/22/2008
    I've been burned, I know that. I've been singed and scorched and flambéed. I've been deluded, but I'm not doing that. Melanie has given me reason and motivation to be more honest with myself and with you, my dear readers. I'm going to exploit that. As I said before and will say again, she has a bit of Gallic snobbery, raised by two college professors, and she's an only child. She's profound and precocious. She's still figuring out who she is, not that any of us should really stop. If ...


    Xenology: Fantasy and Reality 07/21/2008
    I assured her, as if the hug were not validation enough, that I remember her. Chrissy is the first girl I dated who emotionally engaged me between kisses. Prior to her, I'd dated a slow girl who went on to become a stripper and Chrissy's older sister Marie, who passed me off after a month to be with the boy who would later father her children. Inasmuch as a fifteen year old is capable of complex emotions, I had them for Chrissy. After four months, she dumped me for a drug dealer named Joe, ...


    Xenology: Take This Waltz 07/15/2008
    My wallowing is not so bad until the head waiter, seeing that I am sitting at a tiny table, nursing the diet soda I was fool enough to order before the bar opened, proclaims to everyone within earshot that I am alone and that they ought to take pity on me in about as many words. I stammer that I have friends, they just happened to be busy having just been married, and look down at the plastic sword that came with my latest meatball but quickly decide that it is a woefully inadequate weapon ...


    Xenology: Dissecting the Angel 07/10/2008
    Daniel lectured Hannah and me on concepts such as squaring the circle and trisecting angles, ideas just beyond my reach and interest. I try to pay attention and the basis behind what he was trying to do -- solve a series of math problems left by the ancient Greeks, who felt these acts could be done but didn't have the technically capacity -- truly appeals to me. I don't see why Daniel couldn't be the one to find these answers and I think it would be too easy to underestimate his capability, ...


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      Ctrl+Alt+Del 08/23/2008
      Man, you'll give a girl a miscarriage pulling crap like that.

      Oh. Oh damn.


      Ctrl+Alt+Del 08/23/2008
      You know what will bring you two closer? Another miscarriage.


      The Truth About Barack Obama | Oliver Willis 08/20/2008
      Did you know Obama eats pollution and craps gold? Fact.


      8/15/2008 - Chickamauga School Board Fires Accused Teacher - Breaking News - Chattanoogan.com 08/16/2008
      Didn't commit any crime... good teacher... CAN HER ASS!


      Facebook users change middle names to Hussein in Obama solidarity protest | The Industry Standard 08/14/2008
      Read the comments. The author is so rightly owned.


      Daily Kos: To Write Love On Her Arms and Hot Topic 08/07/2008
      From the page: "TWLOHA was started by Jamie Tworkowski in March 2006 to help his friend Renee Yohe pay her rehab bills and it ballooned from there. They seek to give hope to those with depression, those who are addicted, those who are suicidal, those who cut. They try to connect people to treatment centers, books, support groups, or just someone who will listen. They donate money to keep suicide hotlines open or defray the bills of troubled kids who need it. They are not without their controversy, mostly a request for greater financial transparency as would befit any other nonprofit organization, but, ultimately, they want to start discussions about this epidemic of treatable conditions."


      Individuality 08/06/2008
      I don't believe I need a crappy website to tell me who I am, what to think, or what to do either.


      Sylphs & Chemtrails 08/06/2008
      "I believe that air elementals eat government chemicals and I VOTE!"


      YouTube - The Moon a Mirror? 070408 08/06/2008
      Please, please fund public education so things like this don't happen.


      You Still Cant Write About Muhammad - WSJ.com 08/06/2008
      Dear Muslims, the author of this article and the novel are trying to help you. Most of you are painfully aware of this fact. The idiots trying to harm people and threatening violence are everyone's enemies, yours especially. They defame your religion and your spiritual leader. They are a cancer.