thus and such

I feel like my house has gotten to that stage in Tetris where it's easier to let it pile to the top of the screen and start a new game. In my bedroom, at this moment, aside from the normal bedroom stuff, I am currently housing a ten-speed bike, two guitars, a stack of real-estate related paperwork, and an extraneous 17-inch television. We won't even talk about what's in the closet.

PS - It occurs to me that some of you may not live with a musician, so your bedroom may not traditionally include the same things as ours. When I say "normal bedroom stuff," I am including an amp, pedal board, microphone, microphone stand, and roughly half-million cords. I am also including the post-its and receipts upon which my husband has recorded Very Important Information Which Must Not Be Discarded, ever.

Clutter bothers me deep in my soul, and this apartment has reached maximum capacity. Also, I am sure you have all experienced the phenomenon in which as soon as you know a change is coming, your current station becomes intolerable. It happens with jobs, with pregnancy, with houses - anything. Now that I know we're about to have a house, the apartment feels ... paltry.

Clutter in my bedroom, clutter in my brain - that's my life right now. So this is me, trying to organize my thoughts, since the bedroom seems beyond repair.

1. ABA therapy for children with autism: as a teacher, using this approach is like watching paint dry. But it WORKS. It is more reliable than any other therapy approach I have ever seen. I can't get over it. I spent today at an ABA clinic, and even though my philosophy on teaching argues against this type of therapy, I just can't say enough how well it works. Today, for about two hours, I really missed working. Not enough to change my mind, but still. How lucky am I to have a career that I MISS? So few people have that.

2. My husband won't stop doing nice things for me. In response to my frazzled state, he bought me Season 1 of Friday Night Lights. Wasn't that nice?

3. A lyric for Aristaeus. It's by The Wailin Jennys, but it sounds like something Whitman would have liked.

All or nothing now
Might as well be true
Leave the dream of hearth and home
That never will come true

Live and die and gone
Live and die and gone
Leave the dream of hearth and home
Live and die and gone

Sweet wild road ahead
Sweet wild road ahead
If I lied and said that all was well
I might as well be dead

Single I was born
And single I will die
I'll marry myself to the whole wide world
And never make her cry

4. I'm feeling very opinionated tonight, but I'm not sure I want to post every single thought. The whole traceable-for-all-of-posterity issue, you know. But I will say that I heard something interesting about Larry Craig on the Today show this morning: the guilty plea he keeps saying he didn't really mean? It was filed two months after the charges were made. I had envisioned an immediate filing without consulting a lawyer. Two months? He had that long to consider it, or to consult with whomever, and this is what he decided to do? And now he's going to try to undo it? Good luck with that.

5. I understand that choosing a single topic makes for a larger blog readership, but honestly, I don't want to. I do this because I like it. I don't want it to feel too much like work. Having said that, I AM preparing to do some actual work for a church's website. I am hoping they'll let me write their weekly devotional blog. It would be so fun. And, in direct contradiction to what I JUST said two sentences ago, a little self-discipline never hurt anyone. Just - don't make me do it here. Here I like to ramble.

6. In honor of ABA therapy, which dictates that you always end a program with something positive - a picture of the cutest baby I know.