Ice-skating--Letter #17

Dear Governor Ducey,

I went to sleep last night thinking about stones and getting blood from them and the phrase "do more with less" which our administrators tell us when our jobs descriptions get longer and our standard of living falls lower. "Blood from a stone," is the general feeling but, of course, blood from a stone requires transmutation which is something only poets and witches are good at and there are very few jobs for either these days. Fortunately, as a writer of words, and then a sometimes marketer of ideas, regardless of a poet and wannabe witch, I can think of ways that I am value-added, similar to blood in stone or more from less. For instance, I submitted a grant application yesterday. It was for a mere $1000. It took 27 working hours to write and to work it through the maze of bureaucracy applying for a grant can be. It was probably not worth the $1000 I may or may not receive but that ability to write answers to questions like, how will you evaluate the success of your project is not something poets or witches or stones are expected to do.  

I have several letter ideas that involve stones and sand and dirt but perhaps I will just end with this: After I submitted the grant, I woke up in the morning, read an excellent essay by a student who graduated two years ago, sent hir some comments and then I took my kids ice skating. How’s that for value-added? Max, who is five, if you recall, and Zoe, who is 9, and I circled the rink 100 times which is a kind of meaninglessness and also a kind of transmutation because by the time I skated the last turn, I had forgotten about you and your budget cuts entirely.