Dear lazy Sunday,

For years Lazy Sunday felt like a tease.  Lazy? No.  Sundays are stressful.  Sundays are waking up after the most amazing dream only to find out that it wasn't real.  Sundays are for homework and remembering everything that you have yet to do.  Sundays are procrastination and a cry for productivity. 

But, honest to God, I have lazy Sundays now.  I know that Monday is coming and I must return to work and lists of students and bell schedules, but Sunday suddenly has no pressure.  (That's not totally true since I end up typing up lesson plans on Sunday afternoons, but since I've stewed about them for an entire week that has more to do with putting pen to paper.)  I sleep in late, which is now a lazy 9:30, and wander upstairs for a decadent breakfast not eaten in ten minutes.  Sunday isn't so dreadful when you're not a student. 


love,
hannah

Dear river,

My check in question for my students the last two days has been "what is your favorite thing about fall?" Fall is, without a doubt, my favorite season so the question really just allowed me to get excited about everything they said. There were the usual answers, the colors, Halloween, wearing scarves... And then one student said "I like the Mississippi, when you cross it an you can see colors on all sides" and though I had agreed with every answer before that, that answer was my favorite. I have an hour commute to work and one of the ways that I make it bearable for myself is the moment I take everyday when the bus crosses the river. I pause whatever I'm doing and I take a look over both sides of the bridge. The Twin Cities aren't as beautiful as Chicago is to me, but that moment makes it a real competition. There's something amazing about crossing such an important body of water twice a day.

My mother suspects that I might be a river person, that I'm drawn to water. Approaching graduation a friend said that we were drawn to rivers at this time because they just continue to travel, as they have forever, without putting too much effort into thinking of where they are going. We aspired to be rivers.


love,
hannah

Dear Mean Girls,

You have taken over.  It is a blessing and a curse.  I want to apologize/congratulate everyone who dealt/celebrated with me as I wrote that stupid paper last fall.  I leave you with this thought:

Happy Mean Girls Day.  Or, everyday last fall.


love,
hannah

Dear cat bus,

One of my most recent bus drivers must be insane.  He guns the bus down the street the second you've stepped on and so you stumble down the aisle of the bus tumbling into a seat.  I stood up before he got to my stop the other day and I almost flew into the front window.  Dude is insane.  I was forcefully pushed into my seat today as he left the bus stop.  I think I was actually experiencing the cat bus from My Neighbor Totoro.  However, I think I might like my commute more if it looked like this:











Imagine this going across the Mississippi.


love,
hannah

Dear Hot.Cool.Yours.,

This is the slogan for the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi.  Seriously? Apparently Derek Zoolander is lighting the torch in Russia right now.  What is this slogan? Why must Olympic marketing be so weird!


love,
hannah

Dear good hair days,

Sometimes you are just blessed.  And that's lucky.  Sometimes those are also the days when you read over a hundred pages.  Sometimes you clean all the things you've been meaning to clean.  Sometimes you can give wise counsel to friends far and near.  Sometimes you can do all those things and still forget to make the chicken. 


love,
hannah

Dear Oswin,

You are awesome.  Excellent debut.  You might be my Halloween costume.  After one episode. 


love,
hannah