Tag: travel

I’m back (also, I left)

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, life4 Comments

I actually missed a day of iLEARN on Friday, as my wife’s aunt passed away; funerals are genuinely just about the only reason I can see myself taking a standardized testing day (especially a math standardized testing day) off, and, well, it happened. Yesterday and today I was in Chicago at my nephew’s birthday party. I have discovered something about my brother that has changed since he married his wife: if he describes something as a party, I am to take that shit seriously, and assume that it’s not going to be six family members I’ve already met. It’s gonna be twenty people and a bunch of kids and since I officiated his wedding they’re all gonna come up to me and go hey, nice to see you again, how have you been? and because I’m a social coward I’m not going to look any of these epos in the eye and dare them to produce my name.

(Everyone was perfectly nice, to be clear; her family is great, as far as I can tell; my brother married very well. That said I was not prepared for a ton of loud noise and adult mingling.)

Anyway, the point is my ass is tired, and on top of all this there’s some other shit going on where either I am a colossal idiot or my doctors have been seriously misleading me. All of this has eaten up all available headspace that I’ve got at the moment, and I still need to put lesson plans together for tomorrow, and after that I’m going to bed. My own bed. Granted, hearing the phrase “We’ve upgraded you to the presidential suite” Saturday night was pretty cool, but not cool enough that I took any pictures, and my bed is always better than a hotel bed.

So, yeah. I’m home. And I’m tired. How’re you? Anyone want to recommend any low-carb meals by any chance?

A couple of FYIs

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, life

I have been injecting Twitter directly into my fucking veins for roughly 24 hours now, in between games of God of War: Ragnarök and ferrying my wife and child around, and I’m at the point where I don’t even care who wins for everything else (except for Boebert Boebert must go God damn it stop teasing me) any longer because I don’t feel like I have the right to ask for much more than we’ve already got. I’m going to be out of town tomorrow night because my dad and I are running some stuff up to my aunt in Michigan, so I’ve got my shit recorded through Saturday afternoon.

I am starting to have some concerns about next week, as we get closer to the actual start date. I feel like I don’t know nearly enough about how things are supposed to work in this building and, weirdly, I can’t get anyone to send me any information. Like, I don’t even have a class schedule yet. I have asked multiple people for a staff manual and the request hasn’t even been acknowledged. It’s starting to piss me off, frankly. Help me be good at my job, please.

Anyway. Good chance of no post tomorrow, or maybe a picture or two, but I’ll be back on Friday and then the cascading anxiety disorder can take over. Excited? So am I.

There and back again

On By Luther M. SilerIn life

We have returned from our voyage to the northern wilds of Michigan. I have officially missed Parent/Teacher conferences, and in accordance with prophecy I am exhausted. I do actually have a couple of things worth talking about, but … yeah, that bit about prophecy. They can wait until tomorrow or the day after.

Meanwhile, I do believe I promised you a picture. This is even relevant to one of those future posts! Consider it a teaser.

Yum

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking

Pictured on this table: Lebanese salad, tahini, beef shawarma, fried eggplant, homemade hummus, homemade baba ghanoush, fried chicken, hand-cut French fries, and Lebanese rice, along with pita bread, both homemade and store-bought garlic spread (made for the chicken, but also delicious with the fries,) fresh parsley, pickles, tomatoes and a homemade tomato sauce to go with the eggplant. Not pictured: a thousand deserts, including about thirty different varieties of baklava and nammoura, which I had never had before this weekend and oh my God.

I don’t know if I made this clear, but my cousin married a Lebanese woman, and for this and a whole lot of other reasons it is very clear that marrying her was the best decision he ever made. And this was only one meal. Like, these folks don’t cook, they COOK, and trying to claim you were full was just not going to work. I can think of three-day periods where I have eaten better in my life– work trips to Nashville and Raleigh come to mind– but I have never come close to eating this well for three days in a row when literally everything in front of me was home-cooked, and she (well, not just her; my cousin definitely pitched in, but it was clear who was in charge) didn’t break a sweat doing it, either.

(Have I paid for my overindulgence today? Maybe a little, yeah. Worth. It.)

Click is still very much available for pre-order, and to go even deeper into asking my audience for things it would be super duper if a handful of those of you who have already read it would review it over on the Amazonmachine. Currently available for just under five of your American moneydollars, and launching f’real f’real on July 26.

Just woke up from a nap

On By Luther M. SilerIn life

… and now I’m ready for bed. We are home; two nights on an air mattress was kinda brutal even without the one night where I have an anxiety meltdown (I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, probably, if you didn’t see the Tweets) and the drive home today was … challenging.

I don’t think we’re going to get to Black Widow tonight. I’ll be lucky to get a half-hour YouTube video recorded before I have to sleep again, frankly.

The view from my cousin’s back yard: Novi, MI

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography

I, uh … I can get used to this for a couple of days.

The View from my Hotel Window: Lake Zurich, IL

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography

Not too bad. I’m TIRED.

The view from my hotel window: South Bend, IN

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, Photography3 Comments

It ain’t much, and it’s mostly my reflection, but the room has wi-fi and heat, neither of which my actual house has, nor will it until late tomorrow morning at the earliest and possibly not until Monday afternoon.

So. Here we are.