This last Tuesday was the retirement dinner for some of my best-loved teachers while I was growing up, as well as for my mother. (The biological one.)

It's a strange feeling watching them age and move on to a new phase of life. It's also nice when some of them remember you, especially when it's been something like 13 years since they had you in one class. I didn't attend, but one of them came up to my mother and brother and talked about me and my writing in school and now. This one particular teacher had told me I should be a writer. I said, "No, no -- I'm going to be an archaeologist." "No, you should write." Well, Mrs. Bell, look which one of us knew more than the other :). I certainly am writing a lot more than digging up dead people and their stuff.

Anyway, it felt good that she remembered me and is evidently still pulling out some of my words to read, even after all this time. Jeez -- it still feels good.

One of the teachers who retired was my seventh grade English teacher. I read Grapes of Wrath for him. That was an experience at 13, I assure you.

This guy rocked, for many reasons. One of the reasons being that he'd read Tolkien, unlike most of the other teachers I'd had previously.

When I was in elementary school, every spring there was the Young Author's contest. And every year the same guy won for my grade. Every year he wrote a short story about the same characters, the story just continued for several years. What was interesting was that his stories seemed to have somehow taken the same exact form of different sections of The Hobbit, only the character names and place names, etc. were different.

It seemed as if I was the only one who knew.

Then in the seventh grade this teacher who taught me English had the class all write short stories about animals. We were all invited to stand in front of the class and read our stories. One of the first ones up was this young writer who had been winning the greatest writing award our school district had for the past several years. He got up and read his short story about Bilbo and a golemn and a ring. This time he didn't even change the names.

I was mortified. Of course, there was no way this teacher was going to pick up on what was going on. Right? But then he told the young man that his story was nice, but next time he might want to leave Tolkein's stories to Tolkein and write his own.

During this same time I was in love with this guy named Luke. I had been utterly crazy about him for about a year and a half. Sadly, he was a year younger than I and was still at the elementary school.

Luke and I are still good friends. He's joined the Peace Corps and is headed to Guyana at the end of the month. Once upon a time, I used to write stories about Luke and I. Usually they involved us running into each other as adults and hooking up: at the town square, in space, in a fantasy world. Usually he was a young widower and I'd never married. The funny thing was, when we did start things up again as adults, he was the single one and I was with Rice. The first novel I ever wrote (at age 11) was about Luke and how we found our way into a strange fantastic underground world via the swing set we swung on during our recesses.

Luke needs a bon voyage card.

Due to LD's eating habits, I've been reading a book a day. No kidding. Like novels. I'm currently reading L'Engle's A Severed Wasp. Luke was the one who originally turned me onto L'Engle with A Wrinkle in Time. We were discussing time travel and he said I needed to read it. He was right. I've been madly in love with her ever since. Once a year I read A House Like a Lotus. Probably my favorite book.

Time to get back to some real writing, too. The lack of is beginning to wear on me. Perhaps I'll work on my novel, like I promised Hobbes.

And if you read this whole entry, you deserve a milkshake. I think I deserve one for writing it :).

Happy Sunday, all.