Welcome, readers. Biographyjar.com has existed to tell my views and life story, complete with zombies. I merged a zombie blog into a biography blog and created… ummm, I’m not sure what. But I renewed the blog anyway. Enjoy.
Reader’s Magnet has accidentally linked to this blog, rather than my education blog. If you are interested in general education topics and my life experiences as a teacher, try https://www.eduhonesty.com, now over 10 years old. It’s nowhere near reaching influencer status, but it does have almost 20,000 users, many of whom I suspect of being real humans and not bots.
Should you wish to order my book on the deteriorating state of US education, type “Fighting the White Knight Jocelyn Turner” into a search engine. It’s available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other sites. Prices vary so it’s worth shopping a bit. I am excited that “Fighting the White Knight” was exhibited at the 2023 San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books and the 2023 Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago!
More information is available at eduhonesty.com — including my email and various social media links.
Why order my book? It’s honest. I don’t pretend we can fix education by improving pedagogy. Reader, are you tired of clueless pundits pushing cheap, simple solutions to expensive, complex problems? Me too!
In fact, I’m exhausted.
Zombie phrase for the day: Good intentions are killing us.
Gooooduddehhnchuhhns ahhhr gihwinguzzz.
What’s in this blog? Zombie phrases for 2023 (same as last year and years before that), random life coaching advice of a sometimes dubious nature, along with stories about invisible slugs and carpet purchases. Go back far enough and you will find tips on how to survive Z Day. Some teaching experiences have managed to bleed into biographyjar, but I have tried to keep work and fantasy/personal life separate.
An app here, an app there, and pretty soon our phone screens become a crazy mess of clutter we cannot even recognize sometimes. What is that italicized Z or off-center popsicle inside the purple square with the rounded corners? Zedge, it says. I look up Zedge. It’s a wallpaper app. But I create my own wallpaper, using personal pics. Yummly tells me it has a new privacy policy — pages and pages of a new privacy policy, written in 2024 legalese. I solve Yummly quickly, holding my finger on the screen until wobbly minus buttons appear. Bam! I don’t have to read a word. Wemo says I’ll need to create a Wemo account soon. No, I think, you are not the boss of me, Wemo. Medium wants to tell me how to know if I am really in love. At this age, if I can’t figure that out for myself, Medium will not save me.
Delete, delete, delete.
Is today a good phone cleaning day?
It’s easier to see what lurks in the forest when excess trees are removed. Maybe this is a good day to scrutinize your colorful screen? Group the apps more efficiently, if nothing else? Phones have become the rooms some of us almost never take time to clean.
Zombie Phrase for the Day: It’s hard to tap with missing fingers.
In September of 2021, I weighed 123.8 pounds, and I guess I cared because I wrote that down. In July of 2024, I weigh 123 odd pounds as well. I got that weight-recording thing from my mom. She repeatedly told the story of her Aunt Ethel, who was apparently so obese that she got stuck inside her claw-footed bathtub. Family members had to call the fire department so that a group of (hopefully) strange men could extricate the unfortunate woman. I can’t even imagine that scene. One sign of Ethel’s humiliation and trauma: My great-aunt’s story stuck forever in my mom’s brain, and subsequently in mine.
So I track numbers. It’s relatively harmless, I suppose. We carry the baggage of our families pasts, some of us more than others.
A biojar observation: It’s good to make a note of the past and our related eccentricities. The past can inform the future. But Great-aunt Ethels should never be driving our decisions. The past is nothing more than wisps of memory, corrupted by time. On any day, at any time, we can let the lessons of the past go, blow a kiss to Aunt Ethel and move on.
Today’s poem, which began as a haiky and sprawled out from there:
Do you suffer from Symptoms, syndromes, sickness, nerves? Money runs downhill In the bubble chamber of paranoia, Backed by creeps and crawlies, Big Pharma’s children — Round green, new blue, and classic white, Triangular, trapped molecules, Shared with frightened social media users, Who breathe and swallow deep, As they plunge down, down, down Into Sackler-type rabbit holes.
Jocelyn Turner
I recommend the Netflix series “Painkiller.” Even if you’ve read about the opioid epidemic, the series fleshes out a great deal of detail that gets lost in print.
Zombie phrase for the day: We need self-driving cars.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
The next total solar eclipse falls on August 12, 2026. This eclipse will pass over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, Greenland, Iceland, Portugal, and northern Spain. It’s definitely not too soon to start planning.
I watch as schools are closed, sold or leased, the already outsourced maintenance workers forced to move on or merely shift locations. If it is Tuesday, we clean “The Latest Healthcare Facility to Replace a Dead, Large Retail Space” instead of the empty, boarded up school of last year.
Where do the battered, aged Chromebooks go? Where do the teachers go? The administrators? The extremely large cups of coffee that were keeping some of these people in motion?
Today’s observations: I like making coffee. I like playing games and slowly nibbling orange scones. I like leaving today’s mess of educational testing behind. I don’t want to think about moving algebra into earlier grades, especially since we can barely do today’s math, not according to the schedules laid out by educational “reformers” anyway. As demands to teach critical thinking skills compete with demands to eliminate homework and memorization, I prefer doing collages, watercolors and an occasional acrylic nonmasterpiece.
I’ve got this. Reader, if today’s crazy is making you crazy for whatever reason, I have a piece of advice:
DETACH
Does it matter who — or even what — closes the door behind you? So many bakeries, reader. So little time. So many scones meant to be savored with delicious lattes or cups of Earl Grey tea, hot or iced. I’ll say it again: DETACH.
When your inner self tells you what you want to do — or not do — believe him/her/them/it.
So I am working on getting the second book out. At some point, I need to focus on alerting people to the first book. But here is a book cover idea sent to me:
We put a giant magnifying glass on top of the front cover, with light streaming through and down to a point, where a little ant-like student in a desk is catching fire. The title is “Burned by the Looking Glass: How No Child Left Behind and the Common Core Trapped Students in a Frenzy of Testing.”
It’s a little dark, obviously. The scariest part: my looking glass cover absolutely captures what I have been writing about, what I have almost quit writing about because nobody running government offices/boards of education seems to care about that aspect of testing — the kids who are part of these hammer-hammer-hammer data collection efforts.
The guy I was talking to started by suggesting putting an ice pick in the kid’s brain. I countered with a double-bladed axe. We took off from there, slaughtering kids along the way and then setting that one little guy on fire.
Here’s a critical portion of the thread, a quote from the anonymous source who has been helping me brainstorm this afternoon:
“Maybe it would be more thematic to put a magnifying glass burning the kid like an ant. Isn’t the new common core stuff dehumanizing and minimizing to kids, so portraying them as ants under a magnifier seems on track.”
My source above has nothing to do with education, except for the fact that he recently graduated from college. He has nothing to do with teaching. This is the view from IT and he and I are in total agreement. I like that phrase, “dehumanizing and minimizing to kids.” Yep.
One more book to help explain why this is so. Then I think I am moving on to science fiction. Going back to the cover now.
Really, the crone is rather fascinating. It takes a special person to decide to weaponize a dog park — a special person to pull up to a park and immediately start taking movies to send off to animal control even though there are only three dogs in the whole park, they are all pretty close to the same size, and they are all playing happily. Did she ask anyone to move from the small dog side (26 pounds and under) to the empty, large dog side, which was noticeably muddier?
Nope. Just like last time, she immediately contacted the authorities. She used her phone to record three perfectly happy playing dogs who would have welcomed her dog — with the result that one dog left and the other two promptly went to the large dog side. Just like last two times, the crone’s fluffy, black doodle ended up “playing” all by himself, alone on the small dog side of the park. Irony: The crone’s dog definitely looks bigger than 26 pounds to me.
Bionote: I’m getting tired of making excuses for weird humans. A number of us have said, “Oh, she’s ill.” Maybe yes, maybe no. Whatever. A little kindness would go a long way in the world right now. I would settle for a few remnants of civility.
(Shasta and Mommy are on an airplane, flying to Chicago after a five-day visit. Mommy is comfortable in her loose, gunmetal-gray, Free People travel outfit, although she ended up getting patted down thoroughly because of her voluminous clothing. That TSA woman even tapped across her chest and inner thighs. Mommy is wearing a pink, velveteen baseball cap, her Abby blue-gray agate earrings, Edinburgh Celtic cross, and black ankle boots with orthotics. Mommy is all about comfort when flying.
Her faithful traveling companion, Shasta the giant, invisible slug, hovers nearby. Shasta is bobbing up and down above the aisle, unable to sit. The plane is full on this 30th day of December. Shasta deftly ducks flight attendants. She is resplendent once again under her shiny, iridescent gold and purple-checkered cape with a pair of antique looking gold goggles and black, velvet bowler hat with holes punched out for her eye stalks. Her slug body is resting on an invisible, rectangular bamboo mat. A flight attendant walks down the aisle with snacks as Shasta moves up and to the right. Mommy eats her Atkins peanut protein bar and ginger crackers while sipping mint tea.
Mommy had another weirdly lucky morning. Cousin Gordy took her to the airport after a fine evening of Dr. Who and Agents of Shield. She had no major delays. She had no long walks from light rail. She slowly ground her way through the line, got patted down, had her diverted bag quickly put through its second inspection and then just went to the gate, with a stop for random socks – dinos for Gordy and science (Daisy) dog for his wife, Cousin Jennie, octopi for mommy. Plenty of time to pick up a tea.
Luck is where you choose to find it. No one threw out any food from her luggage anyway. Then she managed to swap her window seat for an aisle seat, helping a little girl who wanted a window seat.
Speaking of windows:
Window at The Crumpet Shop near Pike Place Market in Seattle, where ghosts make delicious lemon ricotta and other miscellaneous crumpets.
M: Sorry about the airport crowds, Shasta. These places are infested with impatient humans.
S: Airports always have a crowd, and planes are much faster than Fiona the Aged Acura. At least we do not have to tootle through Montana.
M: True. But don’t diss Fiona. She is one way we could get the dog out to Washington when we start to help sell Tacoma house. We must sell Tacoma soon. The very elderly parents in memory care will require cash infusions soon.
Shasta: We have a lot to do, mommy.
M: I’d like to keep the view up close and narrow. Water aerobics. We have to do water aerobics.
Shasta: And sell books, sell art, renew blogs, finish the Fujibrora sci fic novel, take care of Lady and Anne-Marie and daddy, manage info inflow, and tackle social media.
M: Water aerobics. We must faithfully do our PT and go to water aerobics. And run away to Costa Rica.
S: (Dubiously) Yes, mommy. But before we go live in the shadow of some volcano, we should go to Starbucks or DD and work on books and blogs. Lady needs to go to the dog park. And you should put the effin’ phone down, mommy. Too many games and no book marketing!
M: Sigh. Sometimes, a person is kind of sort of done. Too much reality and not enough time for Apple TV. They have waterfalls in Costa Rica and wildlife refuges.
S: Someday, mommy.
M: This was a weird and fun vacation. I loved spending time with Abby and Florian, plus staying at the Residence Inn Marriott in the U District, going to Pike’s Place Market with Michelle, watching Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Agents of Shield and baking shows with Gordy and Jenny, visiting Cousin Kris, going to bookstores, and fighting against the Creeping Mists.
S: (Thoughtfully) Yes, the mist sure got us, didn’t it? You loved that?
M: Not the mist itself, but I love that I keep going.
S: You sure do.
M: Bad dizzies DO sometimes lead to bad waftiness for a while. But the dizzies and I date back to before that ancient endarterectomy. Ah, well. I wonder what Florian and Abby thought. I was struggling enough so that I could believe they had quiet conversations in the background. Who me? What backpack? Key? Phone? I suck at objects generally, but…
S: Yeah. You managed, though. Kept clearing away cobwebs.
M: Me and Frodo.
S: Umm… mommy. Frodo didn’t do so good. If it weren’t for Sam…
M: There are more Samwises out there than you know, Shasta. Sams are everywhere. They absolutely turn into throngs inside the narthex of episcopal churches. They lurk in the oddest places online. Sometimes they call a person from out of nowhere. Or turn up downtown to join you for fish tacos and squash soup. I think there are many more Sams than Frodos. The Sams don’t start quests, but they manage to be on the scene when the Nazgul arrives. You can lose track of Sams because mostly they are relaxing in the garden. They compost, recycle, buy electric cars, and eat supposedly sustainable, wild caught fish, garnished with organic fruits and veggies. (Shasta giggles.) Sams are everywhere. Whether there are enough of them to save the planet, I can’t say.
Leapt into the van, My protein bar disappeared Dinner gone again.
Where exactly did dinner go? I looked all around before I went into the meeting. Anyone else identify with this? Protein bars, protein bars everywhere, and not a bite to eat. Meanwhile, a larger problem lurks behind my confused attempts to find the missing peanut butter chocolate bar, safely hidden in the voluminous black van under the nonexistent lights in the dark parking lot.
How often do your meals get stolen by alternative activities, reader? I recommend boxes of protein bars. But it’s important to remember those bars are small and you can’t just toss them onto seats. Apparently.
If you thought I was going to rail against emergency peanut butter chocolate dinners, reader — well, nope, not me. Those breakfasts, lunches and dinners work. You have to be mindful, though, whenever you have a solution for any problem that is too small to be stuffed into the seat in front of you. Think airplane, tho’ preferably not Boeing 737-Max 9.
Other notes from the December meeting:
Elderberry tea In the St. Giles undercroft I sip. Vestry votes.
Lesson here: Make yourself a good, sturdy cup of tea. That tea may be your only dinner. But my favorite haiku from the meeting was this one:
Where are the vampires? Probably looking for blood In all the wrong places.
