I Don't Know..I Just Work Here

Officially Over It.

2011-10-27T21:06:00.006-04:00

I don't do B+. At least I never have done B+. I guess now I do.

I am taking a hellish class at UMass Boston. It's a semester-long (13 week) class. In that time span, we have to read 13 novels, write 5 papers, do 3 presentations, and take a final exam. In addition to that little nugget of work, I have my full time teaching job to deal with every day. Oh, and somewhere in there, I have to try to squeeze in a personal life.

Last week, I had two papers and a presentation due. Yes, all in one day. And in order to prepare the work, I had to read a 200 page Samuel Beckett novel, and read the lengthy attachment articles the professor floated along every day. Did I mention that I had one week to get this work done?

I got both papers back tonight. I got B+ on both of them.

It was like somebody punched me in the gut. I don't get B plusses. I don't even know what the hell to do with a B+. I'm supposed to be an A student.

Or maybe I am a B+ student now. Maybe I WAS an A student. Maybe I need to update my verb tenses.

The funny thing is that I KNEW full well, at the outset of this class, that I was going to be, at best, able to phone in the work. I took one look at the syllabus and kind of knew that taking this class would be a major mistake, that I'd never be able to give it the full effort that it would clearly require. But I forged ahead, reasoning that it would be better to just get the damned thing over with.

I know...I know...a B+ is a decent grade. It doesn't make me feel any better.

I am not taking a class next semester. There's no way. I'm already living for December 8th, when this thing ends.

I might not care if these classes didn't cost 1700 a pop.

Hey, James Joyce....eff you!!

I am SO, SO, SO over this graduate class crap. I HAVE a masters degree. I have had it since 1999. I am done with studying, researching, reading crappy books, preparing research papers, doing group presentations, and paying out the nose for useless crap classes. I'm done. I really, really, really am!!!!

Canobie Lake Park...The Family Fun Spot That Time Forgot

2011-06-21T18:18:00.007-04:00

Today was the day that every 8th grade student anticipates with joy and delight. From the time they show up at kindergarten registration, the seed of the idea of today is planted in their heads, and incubated over the course of the next 9 school years. It is the stuff of legends, the anchor that keeps many of them in school, the zenith of their k-8 education.

It is Canobie Lake Field Trip Day!

Today at 9:00 AM, the yellow busses rolled out of the school parking lot and headed to that fried dough and teen body odor scented heaven in Salem New Hampshire.

I will not blog about my students, save to say that they were awesome. They were fabulous on the bus trips to and from the park. They enjoyed themselves responsibly at the park. They all showed up at the designated departure time and place as directed. They were great.

What prompts me to take to the web to chronicle my experiences at Canobie Lake Park is the fact that, once you step through the entrance turn styles, it is as though you've left 2011 behind and walked straight back into 1983.

The twice-life size statue of Michael Jackson sitting immediately in the entrance definitely sets the tone. I'm not sure what's going on with the statue's feet. Today, for the first time ever, I noticed that MJ's feet are about three times larger than need be for a statue of this size. Was Michael Jackson known to have suffered from the gout? Was he club-footed unbeknownst to me? Was he abusing podiatric steroids? All's I can say for sure is that this shit's disturbing.

The music issuing forth from the loudspeakers does nothing to dispel the myth that one has gone back about 28 years in time.

Tears for Fears. Duran Duran. Oingo Boingo. Thomas Dolby.

Rhianna? Beyonce? What's that?

At first, when I saw people decked out in Skidz...

or sporting neon mesh half shirts....

I thought for sure that there must be some specially designated 80's day that I hadn't been informed of. Damn, if only I had dug out my "Choose Life" t-shirt for the occasion! I was all set to approach an obese man in an ill-fitting wife beater with a decal of Don Johnson and Phillilp Michael Thomas in their Miami Vice roles and pat him on the back for his obvious good sense of humor, but then I saw a guy with a bad porn 'stache and a permed mullet and I knew this couldn't just be some ruse to elicit a few laughs at Canobie Lake Park. Who would intentionally groom themselves in this manner to garner a few chuckles? Clearly this man was SERIOUS and he thought he looked good. This was an image he'd been cultivating for some time...on purpose.

I refrained from approaching these "good sports" once I realized that this was, in fact, their current day style. New millennium (sorry, I can NEVER spell that word correctly, but you get my drift) be damned.

I want to wear my Quiet Riot fringed half shirt and damn you to hell if you don't like it!!

I saw all kinds of questionable characters today, including the following trademark Canobie Lake Guests:

The mom carting around a 2 day old baby in a papoose, not because it was more practical to manage the baby's diaper bags and other infant-related paraphernalia (another word I have NO clue how to spell, but use all the time), but to facilitate her chain smoking and ceaseless text messaging.

The guy with the two broken legs charging through the line of the Ultimate Frisbee ride and insisting that they could just attach his wheelchair to the ride with the standard office-issue rubber band he'd brought along for the occasion.

An elderly woman with National Geographic body parts sporting short shorts reading, "Hot Buttered" across the sagging derriere.

So, yes, you can enter Canobie Lake Park and feel like you've re-entered the fold of your own middle school experience without missing a beat.

The only difference, of course, is that Canobie Lake is not as "broke" as it used to be in the past.

Memba when the biggest thrill ride there was the Caterpillar? Or when their idea of landscape architecture was to fashionably place a trash barrel in the middle of the park?

Well, now Canobie Lake Park has found its way to 2011, even if its average guest has not.

Case in point...

They have just unveiled their new roller coaster, Untamed. And let me tell you, for a small piddly-arsed park in the middle of nowhere, NH, it's a pretty respectable roller coaster. I'm no Stephen Hawking. (My number sense is pretty much limited to knowing that a #1 G'Ranimal shirt matched a #1 G'Ranimal pair of pants), but I am pretty sure that the incline to the first hill is 90 degrees, and that the first drop is even more acute or whatever the hell you math people call it. I just call it straight up scary. And I don't need a slide rule or a compass to tell me that!

It's a pretty good coaster. OK, so I had to ride it next to a guy wearing an acid washed jeans jacket with a Kix patch ironed onto the back. So what?

Another thing that Canobie Lake has done to "keep with the times" is locate hand sanitzer dispensers at regular intervals throughout the park. This is much appreciated, especially since the restroom soap dispensers are frequently empty. However, I'd like to ask Canobie Lake park administrators to acknowledge that rancid body odor, as quaint and retro as that might be, is just not charming. Perhaps they could put automated deodorant dispensers alongside the hand sanitizer ones in order to eradicate the pervading odor of Teen Spirit from lingering on every breeze wafting through the park.

Anyway, I have to go rub some aloe on my Canobie Lake Chaperone farmer's sunburn.

Yes, I used sunblock, and lots of it. But there's only so much Neutrogena factor 55 can do in 6 hours of direct sunlight.

Hey, I could have gone all out 80's and used Hawaiian Tropic "SPF" 4 baby oil. But, in this day and age, a girl's gotta rub some intensive coverage under her off-the-shoulder Flashdance inspired sweatshirt!

And the Academy Award Goes To...

2011-02-27T10:11:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to convince Stephen to go see Black Swan with me today. Not because I really have any burning desire to see it, per se, but because it will be a great procrastination tool to further derail the plans I had to get to my pile of grading I've been staring at for the entire vacation week. Why Black Swan and not one of the other nominees? Simply put, I've heard of Black Swan. That's enough to pique my curiosity.

Mistaking my "interest" in the movie for a desire to keep current on this year's Academy Awards race, Stephen went in and put on an episode of NPR's "On-Point" in which the venerable Tom Ashbrook moderated a discussion about this year's film nominees. (In the entire time I've known Stephen, I don't think we've seen a single movie together. In fact, I think my last foray to the movie theatre was to see ET...the original, not the 20 year re-release. So I'm not sure why Stephen thought I was so enthralled with the subject of the Oscars, but hey, if listening to the show meant further procrastination from grading, who was I to argue?)

"We're" in the process of painting the kitchen (I've drifted in there a few times to tell Stephen it looks good, so I guess I can say "we're" painting the kitchen. So he's done all the work and I've supervised. I think that's a pretty good working dynamic, don't you?), so Stephen didn't want to break momentum to head to the theatre. I am trying to coax him to see a later show. I'm sure if I pressure him enough, he'll abandon his paint roller and step ladder.

This Academy Award episode of "On Point" showcases various movie experts weighing in on what films and actors are likely to pick up the coveted little gold man. They talk about potential surprises and upsets. Typical fodder for this kind of broadcast.

What I think is missing is commentary on what can reasonably be expected as predictable Academy Award happenings. We all know that the following will happen...

1. Some over-the-top and performance by overrated hosts (I have never even heard of the two people hosting this year's show.) The comedic value will be lost on me because I've seen none of the movies being referenced. However, I will recognize the telltale signs of the hosts thinking they are the greatest things since sliced bread, and basking in the self-congratulatory glow of their wit and brilliance.

2. Frequent shots of Jack Nicholson, the denizen of the front row center seat of the Academy Awards audience, wearing the same tired old sunglasses and flashing that overexposed "Batman Joker" grin.

3. Joan Rivers and her hideous daughter Melissa interviewing stars on the red carpet, asking them what designers they're wearing, and then conducting post-mortems on the celebs the next day on some "E Fashion Wrap" show or some shit. I wouldn't mind, but Jesus, the "experts" who comment on Joan Rivers appearance are employees of the Boston-based McCourt Construction. It takes that level of knowledge to comment with authority on the extensive reconstruction she's done to what used to be her face.

4. Women refusing to refer to themselves as "actresses", instead using the term "actor" to promote and engender equality in the acting world. (Gag) Meanwhile, though, if they win the academy award for "Best Actress" they'll suddenly embrace the term.

5. Some young female "actor" winning the academy awared over a vaunted and veteran actress and then tapping into method acting chops to feign humility at having even been nominated alongside said veteran actress. Usually the lines, "It is such an honor to even be considered in the same company as Merrel Streep, Shirley McLane, Judy Dench, Cloris Leechman, etc.", factor into the stunned starlet's speech. This year, I predict Natalie Portman is practicing sticking toothpicks in her eyes to force tears at winning over "the amazing" (Portman's inevitable words, not mine) Annette Benning.

6. Some star using this venue as a totally inappropriate forum to voice his/her out-of-touch political or environmental views. Sure, Matt Damon, I'll go out and buy a 17 million dollar energy efficient home in the Hollywood Hills.

7. Alternating audience shots of Brad and Angelina and Jennifer Aniston.

8. Some inexplicably hideous fashion statements.

9. Some embarrassing moment when some celeb gets called for an award, but is in the can or hitting the bar or something.

10. Some celeb proving his/her illiteracy as he/she struggles to read the 1 syllable words on the presentation speech from the teleprompter.

11. Some horrible dance-moderne presentation to a medley of all the best song nominees.

12. Every celebrity thanking every person they ever met in their entire lives as they ignore the "shut up" music.

13. Me shutting off the show three minutes into the broadcast and hearing a recap of the results on the radio tomorrow morning.

Any other Oscar Predictions?

Boston "T" Party

2011-02-15T17:02:00.002-05:00

It's no secret that I HATE the damn MBTA. Late busses. Surly drivers. Dilapidated equipment. Uncouth fellow passengers. For those of you unfamiliar with the ins and outs of travel on the MBTA, that's a basic snapshot of what goes on during a typical commute.

You know how they say that if you locked a chimpanzee in a room with a typewriter for 20 years, he would eventually be able to type out the entire canon of Shakespearian oeuvres? Well, I have a theory that if you lock a chimpanzee in the command center of the MBTA for 3 seconds, he could eventually run the entire system more efficiently and effectively than it is currently run by its "human" overseers.

A couple of weeks ago, when I caught wind of the MBTA's contest for a rider to become "General Manager for a Day" I decided to enter. I was asked to write a 150 word essay stating why I would like to step up to the position. Basically, I said, "I think any idiot could run the T better. Let me try." I did not win the contest, but a few days ago, I got an email from the T, saying that I had been one of the 10 finalists, and that the finalists were being invited to participate in a 10 person roundtable discussion with the General Manager of the MBTA. The goal? To provide suggestions as to how to improve T customer service.

Naturally I accepted the invitation.

I reported to the MBTA Central Operations Center on High Street today in Boston. In the invitation from the T, there were no directions (T or otherwise) as to how to get to the location. I went onto the MBTA website to get the directions. The trip time was estimated at 53 minutes. I left myself about an hour and 40 minutes to make the trip. I got there just in time. Not bad, Team T. The estimated time was just 47 minutes off. Oh, and the walking directions from South Station to the address were entirely wrong. Typical T.

I arrived at the appointed hour and found one other participant anxiously awaiting the beginning of the "T Party".

Let me just say that as a middle school teacher, I'm pretty good at picking out troublemakers. My radar was beeping like crazy when I saw this jackass. People, he was a totally neurotic (bordering on psychotic) geek. He started loudly and boisterously complaining about the T while I was trying to sign in and get information from the front desk guy. We rolled our eyes at each other. The front desk guy said, "Sorry. This is gonna be a looooooong day for you". Then he went back to his Boston Herald and effectively tuned us out.

We got to the meeting room, located above the very impressive command center for the entire subway system.

(This is my own picture, yo!)

Psychopath booted up his laptop to reveal a freakin' Power Point presentation that he had prepared. The take-no-prisoners, very imposing T command officer shut his ass down with that nonsense, but she could not stop him from barraging her with annoying, repetitive, and obscure questions. He asked why, when the train is delayed, the conductors don't give an estimated wait time. (A good enough question). she explained why that cannot happen. Her answer seemed valid, but he kept pummeling her with the same question over and over.

As she supplied information, psychopath kept sprawling out all over the table to write in his notebook. The T employee suggested that might want to take a seat. When he refused, she basically threw his ass into a chair. Normally I'm not in favor at excessive force at the hands of a T employee, but I nearly applauded the woman in this case.

Psychopath hammered away at the Commuter Rail operator when he took us to their command center, as well. He supplied the same answer, but psychopath was on a mission.

We had a meeting scheduled with Rich Davey, the T General Manager, at 11:00. I kept glancing at my watch. We were still standing there in South Station at 10:50, and we had to get all the way to the Arlington St. Stop by 11. Of course we were poised to be late for the T meeting. (Not to mention, they were calling the 11:00 AM meeting "The Noon RoundTable").

(General Manager Rich Davey, picture on the right. Although Wally could probably run the T just as well)

Rich Davey was lovely, charming, friendly, and well....funny. I was seated right next to him at our meeting. He went around the table and I raised some concerns about the bus service on the 86. Namely, the bus shelter in Harvard Square has schedules for four routes that do NOT run through Harvard Square, but NO schedules for routes that do run through Harvard Square. He asked when I'd be out there again. I said I'd be there tomorrow night. He promised that would be fixed by then. I'll let you know. He also found it very when I said that my travel plans are always "86'd" by the 86. You have to give him credit for laughing at that crap, right? He also promised to put plain-clothesed MBTA employees on the 86 bus within the week to track the bus to see if it is being driven efficiently, and/or, whether the schedule needs to be changed to reflect the reality of the schedule. (He also chuckled when I referred to the 86 schedule as a great work of literary fiction.)

Everybody pretty much had a chance to raise a gripe or two. Davey listened to all of us, and promised that each and every problem would be investigated. It's hard no to find the guy affable and friendly. And I have to give him credit for trying to reach out to passengers. The psychopath kept harping on the tired old question, to the point that he was taking time away from other participants. Finally, losing my patience with his ass, I called out, "Look, you're beating a dead horse here. You got an answer. You didn't like it. Beating the dead horse isn't going to make them change their answer!" Mr. Davey laughed out loud...king of a barking laugh that he promptly disguised as a cough, but it was a definite laugh. It made everybody else laugh, too.

The above photo shows a typical red line commute. I hope our meeting with Mr. Davey helps improve T service.

Next time you see accurate bus schedules at Harvard Square, give me a silent shout out.

Snow Days

2011-01-26T18:32:00.002-05:00

Let me just say that New England is not fit for human habitation. And yet, here I am. When I walk around tempted to call other people idiots and morons for their various transgressions, I'm going to try really hard to remember that I reside here...in New England...where winter lasts for 11 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 24 hours, and 59 minutes, and 59 seconds a year.

I continue to live in a place where, when my small white car is buried beneath a snow drift, a perspective shoveler will scratch his head and ask, "I'm sorry....where is your car?"

I voluntarily call a place home where, upon waking up in the morning, I am greeted by the radio newscaster announcing, "It's almost 5:00 AM and zero degrees on this Monday morning".

I do this of my own free will. I haven't been sentenced here, much like hardened Russian criminals are banished to the far reaches of Siberia. At least when those jackasses are slipping and sliding around on a layer of permafrost, they can take comfort in knowing that at least they're not dumb enough to actually want to be there. I have no such excuse. My life in New England is not the result of court proceedings or a sentencing hearing.

We're looking at our 4th snow day tomorrow. This is going to extend our school year until June 28th. Has anybody reading this ever tried to keep an 8th grader engaged in learning beyond June 1st (or ever)? Let me tell you, I can predict now, with a certain confidence, that there will be no earthshattering scientific discoveries issuing forth from our middle school science lab on June 28th.

I used to look forward to snow days when I was a kid. It was GREAT to get up and hear the weather guy announce that there was no school in my community. I'd roll over in bed, catch a few more hours of ZZZZs, and then take to the sofa to put a serious dent in the daytime TV lineup.

These days, however, I dread snow. Yes, the occasional snow day is a welcome retreat from the rigors of a full work day. It gives me time to catch up on my grading and to catch a favorite weekday gym class. But at this point, I'm just straight up sick of it. I HATE digging my car out (or shoveling out money for somebody to do it for me). I hate the prospect of having to be in school straight on through the summer. Yes, our contract prohibits the district from having school beyond June 30th, but there's nothing in there to protect our Feb or April vacations. And at this point in my life, I just hate being cold and slipping and sliding all over creation when I open my front door.

At this point, I'm probably going to be making up 2011 snow days until I retire.

Summer.....where are you?

Reporting From the Front Lines of American Retail Stores (Holiday Shenanigans Edition)

2010-11-14T15:23:00.004-05:00

If you've read my sister's blog, you'll know that she's filing frequent reports of the Holiday Bazaar Season. As for me, I'll be filing reports of the Holiday Bizarre Season. I'm not sure there's a real difference. Any line separating the two is fuzzy string of tinsel at best.

I actually started my day with a nice 45 minute walk to the gym, an hour long step aerobics class, and then a brisk walk with my husband through the Arnold Arboretum. I'm not sure what made us think that the natural progression of activity for a beautiful Autumn Sunday would be joining the ill-mannered masses in hauling our husks through the popular retailer, Target.

I know we haven't even reached Thanksgiving yet, but let's face it...people are already in full Christmas mode. Stores are crowded, parking lots are war zones, and wiser shoppers know to come to the shops having updated their living wills, left notes about their intended whereabouts with loved ones, clad in full body armor, and provisioned with snacks, drinks, flashlights, maps, GPS systems, flares, and first aid kits.

Johnny Mathis might think it's the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" but I've never seen his ass in AJ Wrights at 5:59 PM on Christmas Eve and I beg to differ.

Anyway, as soon as we stepped foot into Target, we kind of knew it was a mistake. But we just sort of looked at each other and silently resolved to forge ahead.

As with most Target stores, the Watertown location boasts a robust trade at the "Dollar Zone" area right at the entrance. It was there that I saw two elderly women engaged in mortal combat over the last box of PoppyCock peanut brittle. I didn't feel compelled to referee the match. I figured that at worst, they would knock each other's single tooth out, which, of course, would be inevitable for whichever one ended up actually securing the dental-woe-inducing confection.

Who the hell had time to try to engage these ladies in peace talks? Not me. I was down to a mere 58 minutes to run the length, width, and depth of the store to get everything I needed. Rose Niland and Blanche Devereaux were on their own!

I made my way over to the womens clothing area to have a look at the advertised $9 sweaters. I had my doubts, but I figured I'd take a look. I should have gone with my gut instincts. The "ribbed knit" sweaters were,I think, made of a unique Muskrat hair-Glad bag hybrid material. Naturally that didn't stop frenzied bargain hunters from descending upon the dispaly of sweaters as if they were $9 Prada handbags instead of the North Korean state clothing factory rejects they actually were.

I continued to battle my way through the store.

I risked life and limb in the toy department (where about 4 kids had crossed the line from temper tantrum to full blown Chernobyl nuclear meltdown), the electronics department (where a droopy-pantsed youth was trying to slip an 80 inch plasma screen TV into his oversized Ed Hardy sweatshirt, much to the amusement of the hovering security guard), the health and beauty department (where a man dressed in cowboy boots, a denim mini-skirt, and a fringed vest circa 1975, was unabashedly opening up every single package of Physicians Formula makeup and sampling it on his own visage), and the food department (where two women used their shopping carts to cordon off the Nestles semi-sweet chocolate chip display, blocking both myself and the stock person who was there to replenish the supply).

Finally, with a splitting headache, sore legs, an aching back, and a general sense of malaise, I retired to the only area of the store that I knew would be empty so that I could collect my thouhts and tap into my second wind. Where might that quiet oasis in the middle of a busy Target store be? I'll give you one hint. I'm going to throw a conservative estimate out there that about 100% of the shoppers there today were illiterate. So, naturally I took to the book department. Success.

I don't know what made me think that a pit stop at the Target Starbucks on the way out would be a good idea. Maybe I got cocky, thinking that since I'd survived the shopping experience, that I was invincible and that even the Target Starbucks could not defeat me.

Yeah, right.

The 3'2" burqua clad woman in front of me ordered a big mocha, skim, soy, half-caf, breve, non-fat, half-fat thing that took a full half hour to order. I almost fell over when the barista announced the grand total of $6.78. And I think I may have legit fallen over when the customer produced an Iggy's bread plastic bag full of nickles and pennies and proceeded to count out the money....very slowly...and with great ceremony.

When, finally, I had my own coffee in hand, I went over to the milk and sugar bar. The woman was still holding court over there, but since it had taken the barista a full 7 hours to separate her coin payment into the register (before filling my order, of course), I figurd she'd had plenty of time to doctor up her drink to her liking. So, I went right in for the reach to the skim milk. As soon as I made my move, she literally flung herself at me, and started making a great production of showing me that it was a real effort to reach across me to get to what she needed. She kept huffing and puffing and moaning about my being in her way. Naturally I took my sweet time, releasing both Splenda packets into my beverage, one granule at a time, stopping after each one to replace the drink cover, adjust the straw, and then take a taste.

Payback's a bitch!

Anyway, I managed to find my husband, who was already in the throes of a major psychological breakdown after his meanderings through this shit show. So, we agreed that I'd drop him off at home and then continue on to Stop and Shop.

I won't really get too detailed about my experience at Stop and Shop. Suffice it to say that the general behavior patterns weren't much better than they had been at Target. However, there is one thing that makes the supreme uncouthness even more unacceptable and revolting at Stop and Shop. For example, when I enter the restroom at Target and see and employee in there hacking up a lung and then not washing their hands, I take a nosedive right into my always-handy hand sanitizer. When I see it at the Stop and Shop restroom, like I did today, I just want to die a million little deaths. I can't even talk any more about that because I'll just never eat anything again. Oh wait...that might not be a bad thing.

I had people ramming those enormous child-car carriages into my legs, reaching over me, bludgeoning me with coconuts, and literally taking shit right out of my cart...on purpose...not because they thought it was their own cart. But whatever. I survived.

I went over to the Dollar Store after food shopping. Again, clearly my power of levelheaded thinking had completely evaded me at this point. I was curious about the "Now accepting EBT cards" signs on the entrance. I wondered what the Dollar Store could offer for EBT cardholders.

Now before I "go there" let me confess that I'm actually kind of a socialist at heart. I think a government should provide for its citizens. I think of things like healthcare, higher education, and nutritious food as fundamental human rights.

However, I don't view "Burger King Onion Ring Chips" and "KFC chicken stock" as fundamental human rights. And yet...there at the Dollar Store, are people stocking up on these "essentials".

OK...I gotta run.

I have to delouse and sanitize myself in the shower following my filthy adventures in holiday retail.

For My Eyes Only?

2010-08-15T17:35:00.004-04:00

My friend Scott recently asked me (via a Facebook comment on one of my "You'll-never-freakin'-believe-what-I-just-saw" status updates), "Do you think you just attract nuts or what?"

The answer to this question is an easy one. Yes, I do attract nuts. My long track record in managing to find myself next to the nuttiest bastard in the room would attest to my unparalleled magnetism with the mentally unstable.

Another friend asked me if the things I report really happen. She wanted to know if I embellish the truth, or if I might, perhaps, even fabricate these tales of woe. This is also an easy one. No. I do not make this crap up. I couldn't possibly. I'm not nearly creative, clever, or imaginative enough.

What I am is observant and eager to share.

A question that I have recently begun to put to myself is whether I'm actually seeing these things, or whether I'm just imagining them. Why would I wonder such a thing, you might ask? Here's the thing...sometimes when I'm seeing something that makes me stop short in shock and renders me utterly speechless, I realize that nobody else is even registering it or reacting to it in any way. And then I wonder how the hell people can seriously be seeing the same thing that I am seeing and NOT demonstrating any overt signs of disbelief.

I mean think about some of these things that I've seen and ask yourself if you would also be, at the very least, somewhat taken aback if you too saw them.

Snapshot:

A few months ago, a man got on the T in front of the Comm Ave Shaws. As he boarded the train, one of his grocery bags tipped over, spilling the contents on the floor. One of the items that came out was a whole coconut. The young woman who helped the man retrieve his belongings commented that she had seen the coconuts and was tempted to buy one, but lamented that she had no idea how to properly cut into one. With that, the man took a massive MACHETE out of his bag and proceeded to hack the coconut apart, by way of demonstration. At one point, the T operator came back. I was thinking, "Right, here's the part where the conductor tells the machete wielding passenger that he has to get off the T, because, well....2-foot long blades are not allowed on the T. Boy was I in for a shock when the operator simply said, "You know, I've always been curious about how to open a coconut. Do you mind if I watch?" ??????? HUH?????? As I looked around, I was expecting the other passengers to be shocked, stunned, enraged, baffled. But no...they were listening to iPods, texting, reading magazines, talking on their cell phones, and basically focusing their attentions on anything other than the lunatic who might decide, at any minute, to dismember any one of us. Luckily no dismemberment ensued. There was coconut milk everywhere, but that seems like a pretty minor casualty in light of the circumstances.

Snapshot

A woman got on the crowded T today with a legit 8X10 rolled Oriental carpet. She weighed about 90 pounds, and of course she had some rat-like dog with her. The rug was enormous and seemingly weighed a ton. She had one end of the rug on her shoulder, and was resting the other end on the dog's back. When the T pulled up, she and the dog eased onto the thing, still each holding an end of the carpet. It was amazing. This dog was literally helping this broad move this massive rug, like some kind of freakin' longshoreman. I was pretty stunned. I couldn't take my eyes off how the dog took the lead position in navigating the rug down the extremely crowded aisle, and then found the most convenient position for them to stand in with the rug. I looked around, expecting to see people as entertained as I was by this "moving-dog" but again, people were barely paying him any attention. I'll tell ya this, though, next time I have to move, I'm callin' that dog to come and help me. I mean really, what's he charge for his services, a can of Friskies or some shit?

Snapshot

I am no stranger to the concept of needing a little snack before or after a workout. It's not at all uncommon to see a gym member snacking on a Luna Bar before or after hitting the exercise floor. You'll understand my surprise, I think, when I saw a woman sitting down on the rowing machine on the fitness floor, preparing a full deli-style sandwich. She didn't have a prepared sandwich from home. She pulled out a loaf of bread, a package of Kraft American singles, a jar of mustard, a jar of pickles, a knife, and a plate and got to work assembling her lunch. I was half expecting her to pull out a side of beef and a rotating deli slicer. Shit, I was getting ready to go put in an order for a half pound of cracked pepper turkey sliced thin and pick it up after my spinning class. Again, I was expecting some Cambridge woman to come up and tell her off for preparing an entire meal on the cardio equipment, but NOBODY seemed to even register that it was going on. The woman rowing along on the machine right next to her kind of looked over, but never really had any reaction.

Snapshot

I don't think this really needs much elaboration for effect on my behalf. Some broad was sitting NAKED on a FABRIC chair (sans towel under her bare ass, mind you) in the gym locker room, snacking on a tray of sushi (complete with chopsticks, wasabi, soy sauce, fresh ginger and all the typical sushi accoutrements). I can't even tell you how floored I was. Shit, I've put my bag down once or twice on that very chair. How many other naked asses have graced that chair while dining on Pan-Asian cuisine? I can't even really think about it. I was gearing up for at least a few looks of disgust and shock. But again...NOTHING. Nobody even did a double take. I guess I made up for it because I did like a quadruple take when I saw this malarkey.

Snapshot

A man in 7-11 lets go of a disgusting, massive, loud, vial loogie. Yeah, that's right, in the middle of 7-11. INSIDE the 7-11. NOT OUTSIDE, BUT INSIDE!!! The cashier doesn't even bat an eye. The other waiting customers don't even stir. Nobody breaks stride in their talking, texting, shopping, paying, browsing, etc. I had to run the hell out of there and get home and take a bath in a straight vat of lye because I had stood within 8 feet of this swine.

I could go on and describe more of these random encounters, but the punch line is always the same. Yes, I attract nuts. No, I'm not making this crap up. And yes, I seem to be the only person in the world who notices this crap.

The Art of Nothing

2010-08-09T06:33:00.009-04:00

On September 7th, I will enter the classroom to undertake my 16th year of teaching. I can't believe it's been that long. But I'm no Spring chicken, so there you have it.

Normally, in the summer, I'm taking courses, working (sometimes more than one job), or worse....BOTH. I've had summers that have felt more stressful than school years.

This summer, however, having saved enough money all year to eliminate the necessity for summer work, and having finally completed my courses at UMass Boston, I decided that I would spend the summer doing what millions of teachers around the world do.....NOTHING.

And I truly devoted myself to elevating NOTHING to an art form. I believe that, in taking stock of the past 6 weeks, that I have been wildly successful in that endeavor so far. I haven't perfected the craft yet, mind you. There was that ONE day that I worked at a substitute teacher in a summer school program, and there was that three-day professional development course in early August. But apart from that, I've done absolutely nothing to broaden my academic, educational, or professional horizons. And, in my defense, I got PAID for my participation in both activities, so really, you can't count them as blemishes on my "Do Nada" facade.

When we went to Germany, I almost gave into temptation a few times. Several times I was on the verge of entering a castle or museum, but each and every time, I thought better of it and got myself to a biergarten to wash away the cultural aspirations. I blame the heat for my many near lapses. Sometimes it was an effort to tear myself away from the cathedrals in order to take to the sale racks of H&M, or the self-service area of a local biergarten, but my commitment to my "do nada" goal prevailed in each and every instance. The only real work I did in Germany came in the form of lifting litres of beer to my lips (those bad boys are heavy!) and carrying my backpack around the country (a pain in the neck, literally, but not commanding of any intellectual prowess).

My computer use has pretty much been limited to (I'm borrowing my sister Lauren's word here) Facebook Fuckery. I haven't tried to learn anything or enrich my general knowledge bank in any way shape or form.

I don't watch the news on TV. If I did, I might run the risk of learning something about the world around me. That would put my "do nada" agendal in jeopardy. Speaking of Jeopardy, I love that show, but needless to say, I can't tune in this summer. I might have to showcase my knowledge about an obscure field, or worse yet, LEARN something new. Can't have that now, can we.

I usually listen to NPR, but this summer I've pretty much exclusively listened to Kiss 108. I already knew that California was on the west coast, so when I listen to Katie Perry and Snoop, I am NOT getting a geography lesson. No worries there. When I did listen to NPR yesterday, some woman was talking about how "elevating" the experience of fasting was. She spent a little too long talking about the "outcomes" of the fast, which, as she pointed out, were evident in her toilet bowl. What the what, lady? She urged all of us to "embark" (her word, not mine) on a similar "enlightening" fasting experience. I came home and immediately threw a frozen pizza in the oven and opened up a long neck Bud Light. Fuck that.

Anyway, that's about it for me this summer. If you want to come find me, look for me at the gym, at a local pub, or just hanging out in the sun somewhere. Do not look for me at work, at a library, at a museum, or any other cultural institution. For you will not find me there.

Somerville, I've Figured You Out!

2010-05-22T23:24:00.008-04:00

Welcome to Somerville, a place that, up to now, has been a puzzle, inside of a riddle, inside of an enigma. Ever wondered at how housing prices and general living expenses can be so sky high in a city that seems to be peopled with a disproportionate amount of lowlives (see toothless wonders, degenerates, drunks, slobs, and dive bar affectionados)?

Don't get me wrong, I count myself as a lifelong, enthusiastic member of many of the abovementioned subgroups of our fair city's population. I just wonder how people afford to live in 'da Ville at all.

But I've got it figured out. It might sound strange, but a recent spate of really crap luck with both my teeth and my car have brought clarity and answers.

Up until last April, I had never owned a car. I dreamed about car ownership. It would surely be the answer to all my prayers...or at least to my MBTA-induced woes. It would mean independence, making my own schedule, going where I wanted when I wanted, and increased mobility.

What I hadn't considered was the downside of car ownership. In the year that I've owned the car, I have had to replace the shocks (a shocking price tag was attached to this repair), the rear passenger side window, the sideview mirror (which has been ripped off TWICE), and the AC. (Of course, the AC STILL does not work. I could get it fixed again, but screw that crap. I drove around in a pool of sweat all last summer, and I'm prepared to do it again. I love the summer and have always been a fan of the heat, so I will look at this as a positive, summertime enhancing experience). If I get a little overheated, so be it.

OK, so I'm finally realizing what every car owner has been warning me about since the day I first started dreaming of owning my own car. A car is a money pit. Even without repairs, there's gas, inspections, metered parking....and the list goes on.

I'm going to leave the car thing here for a second, and move onto my next topic. Stick with me because this is all going to come back together in the end.

Teeth.

This year, when my car hasn't been draining my bank account, my dental woes have made sure to keep the money flowing out.

If you'll recall, I busted a tooth. At first, we tried a very massive and very expensive filling. When that failed to do the trick, I had a very traumatic and very expensive root canal. Subsequent to that mess I had a very harrowing and very expensive crown. That whole dental shit show set me back around 1,300 smackeroos.

Now I need a goddamned mouth guard!!! It's gonna set me back 450 dollars. The dentist claimed I'm grinding my teeth, causing trauma to one of my top teeth, and that eventually I could do enough damage to put me in a situation where I'll need another root canal. "Wow! Only $450 for a piece of plastic that'll make me look like Cluber Lang from Rocky III? Sign me up. Here's the check. I'm delighted with the prospect of spending a grand total of just under $2,000 on my teeth within a five month period!"

OK, so where the hell am I going with this, you ask? What do my hooptie and my teeth have to do with arriving at the true answer to the question of how does one afford to reside in Somerville, frequently in lovely properties?

Here it is...

I never really thought much about cars or teeth before last year. I had never owned the former, and I had never had problems with the latter. So neither were really on my radar.

Now I understand that both cars and teeth can be extremely expensive to own and maintain.

Look around Somerville, my friends.

Just go to The Sligo or Razzy's for a drink and you'll realize that none of the patrons, who also happen to reside in Somerville, have teeth or cars! Teeth only get in the way of ingesting beer, and cars only get you into trouble when you drive home after an evening at the aforementioned establishments.

And there it is. If you have no teeth, you will not face costly root canals, fillings, cleanings, mouth guards, and other routine and/or emergency dental care. If you forego a car, there will be no gas, no repairs, no meters, no inspections. It's just you and your Charlie Card, baby.

If I didn't own a car, and if I had no teeth, like many of my Somerville compatriots, I'd be living large!

So, next time you drive by one of those crazy expensive houses in Somerville, note the empty driveway and lack of toothpaste boxes in the recycle bins. It's no coincidence.

An Open Letter of Apology to Ricky Schroeder

2010-04-14T19:00:00.004-04:00

Dear Ricky Schroeder,

I cannot call you Rick Schroeder. I just can't. You will always be Ricky Schroeder to me. But this is a mea culpa, after all, so I'll just add this to the list of the many things for which I owe you a long overdue apology.

Ricky, here's the thing. You have been living your life blissfully unaware of the harm that I meant to cause you 29 years ago, when I was just a wee girl of 7.

My sister and I were regular viewers of your smash sit-com, Silver Spoons, and while we were routinely wowed by the acting chops and dramatic prowess of your small screen costars, Joel Higgins, Erin Gray, Franklyn Seales, and Alfonso Ribeiro, we just didn't have the same enthusiasm for you. We just didn't buy you as Ricky Stratten. Something seemed forced, inauthentic. Whenever you rode that train into the set's living room, we knew we were supposed to be amazed, but we just never felt that you fully embraced the character's lust for life. If you couldn't feel it, how could you make us, the viewers, feel it?

At the time, we were amateur critics. We blamed you and you alone for your shortcomings. We never realized that the directors and casting personnel had set you up for failure. How could any young actor hold a candle to the riveting portrayal of Dexter by the illustrious Franklyn Seales? But again, we were too young and too wet behind the ears as television viewers to see the big picture. We just thought you sucked becasue, well, you couldn't act to save your life. When I look back at reruns of the show in syndication now, I realize that you were doing the best you were. Seales was just a natural scene stealer, and he robbed your thunder at every turn. That wasn't your fault.

So I apologize to you for judging your performance unnecessarily and unfairly harshly. You were just a child.

I hope you can accept my apologies for the vicious and heartless insults we hurled from our lazy-boy recliners. We were so smug with our Kool Aid and Doritos, lobbing insults and subjecting your performance to our harsh scrutiny.

Ricky, I wish I could end my apology here. As shocking and hurtful as this revelation must be to you, I'm afraid I have to admit that there's more. I might as well warn you that what I'm about to tell you is even worse. You might need to brace yourself.

One day, when my sister and I were pondering the most recent installation of the series, we found ourselves feeling a particularly strong dissatisfaction with the quality of your acting. You had entered adolescence, and the creators of the show didn't really seem to know what to do with you. Should they make you the cute little boy that had captured the hearts of Americans? Should they turn you into a cheeky but affable pre-teen?

The lack of clear direction for your character was off-putting enough to cause us to take to our Hello Kitty notebooks and interchangeable-tip pencils. I'm ashamed to say that our intention was not to offer you constructive professional critique, or to show our support for you in this ambiguous stage of your career. Ricky, our intentions were purely cruel and mean. At the age of 7, I penned perhaps the most vicious missive of my entire life. I am 36 now, and I have composed quite a few more poison pen letters in the intervening 29 years, but none have been quite as hurtful and vengeful as the one that I authored on that fateful day in my attic bedroom, my sister keeping watch for our mother and monitoring the content of the letter.

I do not remember all the specifics of the letter. I think my memory and subconscious have suppressed the majority of the details of the letter. But the one line that has seared itself into my brain as the hallmark of the cruelty that I meant to inflict is this one:

"Ricky Schroeder, why don't you take your half-bakaed shit and shove it up your ass?"

Yes, Ricky, it's true. I wrote this all by myself as a seven year-old second grader.

As you well know, there was no internet in those days. I could not simply take to the world wide web to shoot off the hateful missive on a whim. And I could not simply look up your address online.

I had no problem at the tender age of 7 composing a hate letter with a level of verbal dexterity that would make an Obama speech writer jealous; my biggest challenge was trying to figure out a way to get the letter to you.

So, I tucked the letter into a book and put the book under my bed.

I suppose a few things came up in my busy second grade life, because the letter was quickly forgotten. Needless to say, we never got around to mailing it.

One day, my mother, on one of her infamous cleaning jags, found the letter under my bed.

As you can imagine, my mother, who at this point was in her mid-thirties and working full time to raise her children, was not able to indulge herself in the weekly pleasure of watching Silver Spoons. She therefore had no idea who you were. Having mistaken you for a poor defenseless classmate of mine, she flew into an angry tirade. She demanded to know who I was bullying, and for what poor hapless soul I could possibly harbor such hatred.

I frantically explained that I was directing my 7 year-old venom toward a television celebrity, and not a member of my second grade class. She wasn't buying it. She eventually called my Aunt Julie, her sister, to confirm.

Oddly enough, Ricky, once she found out that I was directing my rage and viciousness at a small screen starlet, she was less perturbed than when she thought I had penned the letter for a classmate. She was, however, still irate about the aforementioned line from the letter.

My mother is still quick, to this day, to tell anybody who'll listen, about how my first grade teacher was so awed by my advanced reading skills that she awarded me her first "A" in reading to any first grader of her entire career. The teacher told my mother that in her experience, emerging readers always have room to improve, but that I had torn through her entire library like a cyclone. My mother will go on to talk about how grade two standardized tests revealed that I had the reading level of a 12th grader. Doubtless she had visions of her nobel-prize-in-literature daughter dancing in her head, when the realization that I would be more likely to serve jail time for the federal offense of mail harassment came crashing down on her.

Ricky, I never did get to mail you the letter. If memory serves, I got a rather stiff punishment, and was relegated to my room and deprived of television privileges. Clearly, I deserved that and much more. Having been confined to my room for days on end, I'm sure I missed an episode or two of Silver Spoons. Oddly enough, missing the show made me realize that you were more important to me than I thought. I grew to appreciate you during that lonely period of solitary confinement.

Why, after all these years, am I coming clean to you when you'd be none the wiser without my true confession? I don't know. I can't say for sure. I guess that with your recent birthday, and with your turning 40, it seemed time that we all grow up. You're calling yourself "Rick" after all. I guess it's time I grew up, too. So, in the spirit of turning over new leaves and looking to a brighter future, I have to lay it all out on the table.

Ricky, I hope you can forgive me.

With much love,

Nancy

Lights, Camera, Action!

2010-03-17T18:01:00.003-04:00

I'm no idiot. I know I'm not really supposed to believe what Hollywood tries to sell as "reality" in the movies.

Something tells me Roman Soldiers did NOT have the Nike Shox sneakers sported by the actors who brought them to life in the movie "300". I know Frank McCourt's poverty-stricken and toothless mother didn't REALLY dress in vintage Hermes and Dior like the actress who portrayed her in the movie "Angela's Ashes". I'm pretty sure that if I adopted an adorable red-headed child like "Annie", we would not lapse into perfectly choreographed song and dance routines upon her arrival at my home. I'm also fairly certain that Hitler didn't shout commands to Nazi soldiers in English as we have seen him do in countless World War II related films.

Why, then, in spite of having obtained first-hand, hard evidence to the contrary, do I continue to expect the clientele and employees of casinos to look like the cast in the popular "Oceans 11, 12, and 13" film trilogy?

I've just come back from my 3rd trip to the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut. And just this past summer, Stephen and I were in that Mecca of Gambling in the American desert, Las Vegas. I am not by any means a seasoned gambler, and I know absolutely nothing about statistical slight-of-hand that might help me beat the house. But I can speak with authority on this one thing....You are definitely NOT going to run into the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, or Andy Garcia in your amblings through the gaming floor.

You WILL, however, run into the following "cast of characters":

1. Skinny ass, leather-faced, washed-up old whore who looks as if she has already died and gone through full taxidermy treatment before being propped up for the rest of eternity at her favorite machine in the penny slot corner. The only (and very subtle) sign of life issuing forth is the occasional flick of the 4-inch long ash dangling precariously from the edge of her cigarette.

2. Barrel-chested obnoxious loudmouth who seems to have forgotten the advent of the shower. This creature will manage to sit in the slot right next to yours, even if ever other slot on the floor is empty. He'll then make sure to exhale a steady stream of cigarette smoke into your face throughout the duration of your play. Eventually, even if the machine is red hot and you're winning money hand over fist, you'll have to vacate the premises in order to salvage what's left of your pulmonary health.

3. Jackass who is convinced that if he/she screams loudly enough at the machine, that it will yield copious winnings.

4. Shower-phobe who has been gambling straight through the night without so much as a "freshen up" pause to get his/her bodily aromas under control.

5. Money-saver who decided to forgo the hotel room and has opted, instead, to lounge across the chairs of about 16 machines, one of which you might actually like to play. If you so much as ask this degenerate to move his legs, arms, suitcase, you'll get a dirty look accompanied by a more-determined-than-ever-to-stay-rooted-in-place attitude. I guess the rule is that once you've taken up residence at a machine (even if you're not using it, but rather using it as an ottoman to rest your weary bones, you've officially earned the right to sit there until you goddamn well feel like getting up and moving.

6. The drunken jackass, who thinks you actually traveled to the casino to hear him slur his life story, and NOT to get some gaming action at the slots!

Anyway, the list could go on. But again, what's more important than the people you ARE guaranteed to see, are the people you are guaranteed NOT to see.

There will be no Andy Garcia, no Matt Damon, no Brad Pitt, and No George Clooney.

There will be you and a gaming floor of desperados.

Just sayin.

An Ode To Porter Square Shopping Center

2010-02-26T20:19:00.003-05:00

Where the hell on Earth are we, you ask
as you reach for liquid courage in your pocket flask.
Is it a war-torn battle field?
Shall I ready my weapon and shield?
My dear little friend, fear you not
T'is just the Porter Square parking lot

The parking spaces here are impossibly tight
causing new car drivers justifiable fright
"I won't be here very long" you say
You leave your new car and you walk away
Not five seconds after you depart
Your car WILL be smashed by an errant shopping cart

Let's head to Dunks for coffee and a snack
Be sure to order extra cream if you really want black.

Next stop's Q'doba for a burrito with rice
and pinch yourself, because the employees are actually nice
Hold on, you think, wait a sec.
"This is Cambridge," after all. "What the heck?"
Aren't they supposed to treat me like chopped liver?
Reduce my humanity to a mere sliver?
They'd be rude, I'm sure, if they weren't afraid
Of a sudden INS raid.
Give a Cambridge woman hot salsa instead of mild
and she's likely to go hog wild
She'll call the INS on the double
and make sure your burrito-making ass is in trouble
Out of the country you'll be sent
to avenge the Cambridge woman the money she spent

Did you drop some salsa on your boots?
Well, head right next door to clean 'em at Zoots.
Do you have a dress to be altered as well?
They've got a seamstress named Olga, and she's just swell.
Olga comes to us from with Russia with love
But don't expect her to handle you with a kid glove
You'll advise her of your couture hopes
as she chain smokes and watches her Russian soaps
But Olga will come through, and this I swear
She'll turn out garments you're proud to wear

I'm already here so what the hell
I might as well brave Cambridge Naturals as well
I need an herbal remedy for an itch on my ass
as well as a tube of lipstick made of grass
I try to find deodorant for my pits
but eventually I call my search quits
The do-gooder at the counter informs me
that I should set my natural odor free
Apparently he practices what he rants
'cuz it smells as if he's shat his pants
I have to get out of here, I think
I can barely stomach this stink
If being "natural" gives rise to this toxic stench
Then in chemical perfumes I shall myself drench

I don't know about you
but I definitely need a drink or two
I make my way to Liquor World in a hurry
They've got plenty of booze, so don't you worry
Beer, booze, wine....they've got it all
This is seriously the best store in the mall
But of course, nothing's that easy
My shopping experience here isn't quite so breezy
Some asshole wearing a BERET
is blocking the aisle leading to the cabernet
It's fine if he wants to be a caricature of himself
but does he have to block the beer shelf?
Eventually I get in line behind this hack
And I'm effectively bludgeoned by his overstuffed backpack
You really wonder why I drink?
Just look at this shit; don't overthink.

Whatever, I'm off to Porter Square books
Where I'm sure to engender some condescending looks
from moms nursing their teenagers in the book stacks
or people at the coffee bar eating overpriced wheat germ based snacks.

I'm outta here, I'm going to Tags
Where they actually give you carbon-footprint magnifying plastic bags
I can't quite say what it is for sure
But Tags always leaves me wanting to come back for more
Maybe it's the lack of pretense
or the items to be had at little expense
You don't have to bathe in patchouli or grow a stupid goatee
You can just come in and have the ancient guy in the basement copy your key

Let's head to Shaw's, shall we?
Not sure what to say here, you see.
Yeah, they have the keepin' it real stuff
Ramen noodles and marshmellow fluff
But Shaw's has gone "Cambridgey" too
Come on in for Quinoa and Tofu
Just when you think the yuppies have managed to dominate
Go over to the customer service booth to see Shaw's true fate
The lady with one tooth in her entire head
is selling "scratchies" to a guy who looks like he's already dead
He won't let his iron lung get in the way
of his daily lottery daily game play
A Canterbridgian approaches the counter to gripe
about her package of marinated tofu tripe
Toothless Wonder and iron lung just stare her down
and strip her of her Cambridge "I'm entitled" crown.
Then I chuckle and find a bit of peace
because I know Toothless Wonder's spirit will never cease

And then of course, that leaves the gym
Healthworks Fitness Centers for her, not him
I am not sure I can even describe with the written word
All of the bizarreness I've seen and heard
Suffice it to say here an now
Well...ah....in a brief word....WOW
Why wear clothes
when everybody knows
We all want to see you whip off your full kit
and then stand around chatting, revealing arse, gut, and tit
Modesty is totally overrated
Remain fully clothed and you'll be berated

There's so much more; I could say more
But really, folks, what the hell for?

A Real (Market) Basket Case

2010-02-22T17:29:00.002-05:00

What do the following songs all have in common:

"Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns n' Roses

"Circus" by Brit Spears

"Animal" by Def Leppard

"Let's Go Crazy" by Prince

Give up? Well, let me tell ya.

Like all artists, Axl, Brit, Prince, and our good friend Joe, are forever in search of that elusive muse to inspire their next top-selling hit song. In this case, all of these seemingly unrelated songs have one commonality. You see, they were all written in reference to Somerville Ave's own Demoula's Market Basket supermarket.

Yes, that's right. All of these songs were inspired by the daily shit show that unfurls in the aisles, the produce section, the deli counter, and the cash registeres of Market Basket.

Sure, the prices are lower, and the international groceries are fabulous (and can be had at a fraction of the price of these pretentious swanky, "international groceries" like Cardullo's in Harvard Square), but you WILL risk life and limb if you venture beyond the front doors and into its hallowed (and sawdust covered) halls.

Nobody escapes Market Basket without a few bumps, bruises, and minor skin lacerations. Make no mistakes, these injuries are sustained on a GOOD day at Market Basket.

You see, shopping at Market Basket brings out the basest, most primal survial instincts of the customers. You WILL use that shopping cart as a weapon to get at that last mango. You WILL jeopardize the life of an infant in a nearby shopping cart if if means getting that last packet of wholesale family sized chicken gizzards, goddamn it!

If another shopper gets his arm, leg, hand, or foot in your way...well, he's just ASKING you to go ahead and perform amputation surgery with the aid of your very unsterile shopping basket, jar of pimentos, and bag of spicy pork rinds as your surgical tools.

Who the hell needs two feet anyway?

Actually, the one-legged shoppers are at a distinct advantage at Market Basket. They get to use the shopping CARS with the baskets attached to the front. There's no stopping them when they see those fermented fish heads. If peg-leg wants to get at that last packet of goat entrails in the packaged meat section, he'll run your ass down without so much as a second thought. You'll be peeling yourself up off the floor like a flattened pancake cartoon character. (Think Bugs Bunny getting crushed by a steam roller and then peeling his now one-dimensional body off the middle of the road).

I've found myself in Bug's position a few times, but hey, you gotta give Peg-Leg a wink for pluck!

Anyway, today was like a greatest hits at Market Basket. I hadn't been there in a while, so I was delighted with my exceptional timing in getting there when all of the typical Market Basket shenanigans were going down. Let me share them with you here:

The produce section was particularly crowded. It must be tropical fruit harvesting time in Latin America and Asia because the guavas, mangos, coconuts, and pineapples filled the fruit bins to capacity. It was pretty packed in there. I guess I'm not the only one who likes a good mango.

Questionable parts of several non-traditional (for American consumers, anyway), were on full display in the packaged meat section. Llamas, goats, muskrats, hedgehogs, emus.....each of those animals had some shady body part, organ, appendage, or antler on sale for your dining pleasure. I felt so boring and American when I reached into the refrigerator case for my chicken breast tenderloins. I could feel the disapproving stares of my Salvadorian, Mongolian, German, and Russian shoppers boring in on me as I chose this most vanilla of protein options. They seemed to be willing me to try the Sea Lion fillets. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Two shoppers were engaged in a heated, passionate brawl over their place in line. One of them was 99th and one of them was 100th. It was hard to say who got there first. The lines wrap all the way to the back of the store, and so I think #99 thought #100 was in the deli line, but #100 was sure she had clearly staked her claim in the 99 position by placing her newborn baby there while she ordered her pig skin at the deli counter.

All of the interesting groceries were labeled in 19 languages, none of which were English, and only about a third of which actually used the Roman alphabet.

The lines were moving slow as molasses because each customer was paying with his own nation's currency. Some people were even trying to pay with home rememdies they'd concocted in thier bathroom sinks. I'm pretty sure the cashier took the pesos, rubles, euros, and witch hazel balm.

Live animals were running around the store. No, they had not escaped from the meat department, but rather were the family pets of the other shoppers. Chickens? Turkeys? Antelope? Sure, come one come all to Market Basket!

Some rug rat dropped and smashed a foul smelling syrup, prompting the "Clean up on Aisle 3" distress call over the PA.

As you can see, all the MB Delights were in store for me today! It was great.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that it took me longer to get the hell out of the front door than it did to do my whole shopping order. For some reason, a shopping foray into MB seems to put people into somes slow-moving zombie mode. I was stuck behind Herman Munster, Lurch, and Cousin It, none of whom could pick up the pace!

When I got out of there, I put my face to the sun and wept tears of relief at my newfound freedom. It was kinda like the last scene in that "Midnight Express" movie. You know the one...where the guy escapes from a horrendous Turkish prison after about 18 years of incarceration. He runs the hell out of there, and the camera freezes on him as he leaps into the air, a newly free man savoring his liberty.

OK, so my bags were heavy and I had a couple of glass bottles in there, so I didn't leap, but you get my point.

Bar Stool Olympic Judges

2010-02-21T17:33:00.002-05:00

I'm not really a big winter olympics person. Actually, that's an understatement. I don't give one miserable rat's ass about the winter olympics. Yeah, that about captures my attitude toward what is admittedly one of the largest and most significant sporting events to come to the world stage.

I mean, come on. I can't stand winter, so why would I have any time for the winter olympics? I know everybody celebrates the will, determination, and discipline of the athletes. I just mock their idiotic willingness to stand around outside in sub-zero temperatures and hurl themselves, feet fully tethered to a glofiried skateboard, at breakneck speed off of structures called "half pipes". But hey, whatever floats their boat, right?

Now the summer olympics...I can get with that. Running and throwing heavy stuff in track and field events isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but at least the athletes can work on their tans while they're at it. And the spectators run very little risk of freezing to death. Have you seen the chumps in the stands at the winter olympics? All the overpriced concession stand hot chocolate ain't gonna warm those bitches up.

One thing I will say in favor of the athletes at both the winter and summer olympics is that they are so well prepared that they actually make their respective sports look easy.

I sit there in my living room watching the olympics, washing my chips and salsa down with a Bud Light thinking, "Shoot...Stephen and I could dominate that pairs figure skating yoke!" I seriously think that if only Stephen had a fully body spandex leotard and I had a feathered tutu, we'd be good to go. Mercifully, for the viewing public, we are not in possession of those articles of clothing, so you're safe for now.

I'm wiping my glass coffee table down with Windex and paper towels thinking, "Is THAT all there is to the mogul run?"

I watch a few ski long jumps and think, "I know where the German guy went wrong. It's all in the hand positioning. If I held my hands flat and palms facing downward like that Japanese guy, I'd win the gold." (Of course, I would also have to lose 140 lbs and shrink 8 inches to obtain the physique of the very aerodynamic Japanese man who won the gold, but that's just a minor detail)

Effortless. That's how the athletes make it look.

But of course I realize that these people train like 45 hours a day and that they live, eat, sleep, breath, and dream about their sports. They do nothign else. They are machines. I know that if I took to the ski jump mountain, I'd better have a last will and testament ready to go before they even sounded the "GO!" signal.

Moguls? Really? How do those people still have knees? How are they not hobbled? And that snowboard crap? How do they get that height, find their landing, and NOT bash their heads open off the ledge of the half pipe?

I guess the bottom line is that I realize that the appearance of effortlessness is just that...a mere appearance. These people are masters of their sport and they are at the Olympics for a reason.

Yesterday, Stephen and I went for lunch at a local pub. We had a beer while we watched a recap of the Olympic events that was being broadcast on the enormous TV.

We were more enteratined, I think, by the drunk next to us who saw fit to critique the performance handed in by each and every athlete. Nobody lived up to his stringent standards.

Lindsay Vonn (or whatever her name is) couldn't fool him! Everybody was trying to say that she skiied like a champ on her broken leg. And even though she managed to snag the gold, our neighbor at the bar saw right through her cherade. She didn't get enough lower body rotation, and her time was way off. She also slammed her poles into too many of the barriers, and her mid-course jumps really left a lot to be desired. She skiied like "an amateur" according to Tipsy McStagger.

After he offered this stinging critique, he took advantage of the television commercial to make his way to the bathroom. His own dismount from his bar stool was less than graceful. He nearly stumbled over the nacho-toting waitress and barely managed to break "slow shuffle" speed.

When he came back, he was quick to point out the flaws in Apolo Ohno's technique on the short course speed skating event. He waited too long to launch his attack on the skaters in the lead and should be embarrassed by his bronze finish. Tipsy McStagger then realized that his own attack on the beer taps was lacking in the speed department. He went to take a sip of his beer and was faced with an empty glass. In utter disgust, he beckoned the bartender over and proceeded to abraid him for not filling his glass in a timely manner. The bartender was shaken, but at least the heat was off of Apolo Ohno. Once the beer was filled, Ohno was back under fire. How could they even let this "loser" onto the team, Tipsy mused. I attempted to point out that Ohno is now the sigle most decorated American winter olympian. My argument held no water, however, as Tipsy declared it, "Hogwash!" I guess he showed me.

There was a break in the programming and Stephen and I took off. They were supposed to have hilights from the couples figure skating when the show resumed. I'm kind of sorry I didn't hear what Tipsy had to offer in the way of commentary.

Who needs Marv Albert, Peggy Flemming and Scott Hamilton ringside when Tipsy McStagger could do a much more entertaining commentary? But seriously, thank god Tipsyy isn't a judge. Nobody would win any medals at all. They'd never pass his stringent standards!

Bad Blood

2010-02-20T09:10:00.002-05:00

I've learned something important during this school vacation week.

I really have to be careful what I wish for.

I'm constantly bellyaching about how, as a teacher, I have very little flexibility in my schedule. Now, before you start it about how much time off I get, please hear me out. I DO get lots of time off. I realize that most working people would happily sell their first born's soul to the devil for my work calendar. However, what I'm talking about is flexibility, not time off. Most of my friends can say, "I don't feel great. I'll go in a little later today," or, "I have to make a doctor's appointment. I'll take a longer lunch and then make up the time at the end of the day." You know, that kind of thing. I can't do that kind of stuff. If I have a 15 minute appointment, I have to take an entire day off, leave substitute lesson plans, and then worry about my students mauling the poor sub to death.

The American Red Cross called me late last week and asked me to donate blood this week. I was all delighted to set up a late morning appointment. Normally, during work weeks, I have to make late afternoon appointments. When I get there, they're running behind and taking walk-ins and crap. I also can't go to the gym because you can't work out after you've donated. (Nice excuse...I'm also not supposed to drink booze after, but when they tell me to "double up on my fluid intake" I just get the big jug of wine instead of the single bottle on the way home.)

Anyway, I set up an appointment for 11:30 yesterday, figuring I could take two cool Friday AM gym classes and THEN donate.

What I failed to take into consideration is that at that time of day, all the other donors would likely be crazy, effed up, and unemployed.

There was a guy giving his health history to the nurse in the station next to mine. You know how they always ask you those crazy sexual health history questions? Like, have you had sex with a Samoan guy with Barry White playing in the background? If yes, which Barry White track was it? Was the Samoan man wearing his native dress prior to the sex acts?

You know..that kind of crap.

Anyway, the donor in the station next to mine was asking the nurse questions that would make John Holmes blush. He was asking, "If I've had sex with a person whose gender I'm unsure of, and whose sexual history I did not obtain prior to having that encounter, should I be giving blood?"

Guys....I am NOT kidding. That was his question VERBATIM!

The nurse said she was going to get her supervisor involved in his history screening because she was unsure of how to answer his questions. As she made her way away, seemingly to get her supervisor, he started calling after her, "I mean, I'm sure you've been through the same thing, right? You've probably had partners whose gender you're unsure of. That's pretty common, right?"

She tried to gracefully exit the thing, but he continued to call after her, "I mean, what would you do under the circumstances? Would you be surprised?"

OK, here's the gross part, as he was asking her these questions, he was getting increasingly frenzied and kind of (it grosses me out to say it) excited. He was getting loud and his stutter was getting more and more pronounced.

Clearly he was trying to get his freakin' rockets off by asking this poor young woman these questions.

Jesus, all I could think of was that Buffalo Bill guy in Silence of the Lambs. (It puts the lotion in the basket. SKIN SUIT!!)

Finally, I was taken out of there and brought to the donation room. Thank God.

Several moments later, though, Buffalo Bill appeared. I kept thinking, "I hope they are flagging this maniac's blood for immediate disposal after the donation."

For some reason, the nurse on duty was telling all of us how long we'd taken to donate a complete pint of blood. I am always told that I go pretty fast, and the nurse was commenting on it throughout the collection. Buffalo Bill kept asking the nurse, "How fast? How fast is she going? Is she ahead of me?" He kept turning it into this sick competition. I didn't realize there was a speed medal for blood donation.

Anyway, in the end, it took me 7.5 minutes. Buffalo Bill came in a full minute behind me. Yes!

I was taken over to the snack table. There was some really sweet old lady over there. She had just finished donating and was having her snack. (And, in typical New England Nana fashion, she was emptying half the contents of the snack and beverage table into her purse. She wasn't even trying to hide the fact, either. Awesome. That's so gonna be me when I retire!)

The Tiger Woods conference was on, but the volume was off. The woman and I were speculating on what Tiger was saying. Suddenly, Buffalo Bill surfaces at the snack table. He looks at my Concord grape juice and says, in this attempted sultry tone, "I'll have what you're having." I just ignored him. There were 40 cans of the shit right in front of him. What was he expecting me to pour it and put a little umbrella in it for his ass. Yeah..I don't think so. (It puts the lotion in the basket!)

Whatever. The woman sitting next to me called Tiger Woods a disgrace. Buffalo Bill immediately jumps to Tiger's defense. "A man's got needs!" The elderly woman jabs back. "What he needs is a kick in the pants!"

Ha ha.

The woman turns to me and tells me that her husband cheated on her years ago and she dumped his ass. (She was still stuffing snacks in her suitcase sized purse at this point).

Buffalo Bill looks at her and says, "Maybe you weren't satisfying him in the bedroom."

For REALZ.

The woman and I try to ignore BB, but he keeps it up.

I sort of gently told him that maybe we could change the subject, that clearly the woman was uncomfortable.

Finally, though, upon his insistence of dissecting this woman's sex life, I had to go all Clarice Starling on his ass and tell him that I thought the line of discussion was inappropriate and offensive to two women he didn't even know. I suggested that we steer the discussion back to more neutral topics, or that we stop talking altogether.

The woman smugly stared Buffalo Bill down because I had come to her defense.

She and I both got up and left Buffalo Bill there, stewing in his grape juice.

I even wheeled her snack-filled luggage to the elevator and eventually to her car for her.

I could tell I had earned her forever friendship when, before closing her trunk, she opened her suitcase, reached in, and took out a pack of Lorna Dunes for me.

The EGO Has Landed

2010-01-23T20:28:00.006-05:00

Like most of my fellow Americans, I spent some time last nigh watching the "Hope for Haiti" telethon. I want to believe that most of the celebs who showed up to sing, man the phone lines, and convince us to give to the relief effort were genuine in their desire to help the Haitain people. I want to think that they were really there out of the goodness of their hearts, and that their top...nay, only priority was to help.

But I have that nagging feeling that while some of them were indeed there sincerely, others were there to "be seen".

As my husband pointed out, "Who cares?" They were there to raise money, and they raised money. Haitain people are in dire need, and really, who the hell cares how the aid gets to them?

I'm going to give George Clooney, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bill Clinton a free pass on this one. I fully believe that they were compelled to go because the plight of the Haitain people truly speaks to them. You can criticize George Clooney here, but let me just give you fair warning that this is NOT the appropriate venue to question the motives of Bill Clinton or Samuel L. Jackson. I won't have it.

I have to admit that I tried to call last night because once I realized SLJ was manning the phone lines, I knew that if I ever got through, I would definitely get SLJ on the horn. But then I was worried that I'd lose my cool if I ever had the chance to talk to him directly, so I rethought the call. Also, I was worried that I might get Mel Gibson on the line and that would not end well.

While I'm on the topic of Mel Gibson...

Can I just ask...WTF? Why was that asshole let within a ten mile radius of this telethon?

This jerk has a laundry list of victims resulting from his own personal earthquakes. I couldn't even get over seeing Hollywood's favorite Anti-Semite sitting next to Steven Spielberg at the phone bank. REALLY?

I mean, wasn't there enough celebrity power there? Did they really need the likes of Gibson there? Talk about having no standards. Again, the people of Haiti probably wouldn't turn down any money garnered through Gibson's fundraising attempts, but still....

Maybe he should have just given anonymously and then disappeared into the woodwork....where he BELONGS!

I get that they were doing the whole "humble" thing and not introducing the celebrities by name before performing. Madonna launches into "Like a Prayer" without so much as a, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Madonna!" Ok, I'm down with that. But it seemed like they were trying so hard to NOT make it an ego-fest, that it became quite a massive ego-fest.

Ok, and what was with Julia Roberts? I was sitting around in my sweats in my living room, and I was dressed better than she. I understand that she wanted to go with the understated look. You know, a natural disaster has struck. This isn't a runway show. But really, Julia? You didn't have something a little less frumpy in your wardrobe? Jesus, I was almost ready to crack my wallet open to donate to the Julia Roberts wardrobe charity.

Maybe I shouldn't be such a negative nelly, but I am always really skeptical of these egomaniacal Hollywood types.

1019 Reasons To Avoid Strawberry Jam

2010-01-21T18:27:00.004-05:00

With a name like Smuckers it has to be.....

A dental disaster in the making.

It all started off when I bit into a seed that was lurking in my strawberry jam. (Jesus...why did I opt for toast and jam that day? What possessed me to opt for that over the oatmeal?)

Talk about sowing the seeds for a pain-in-the ass repair and recovery mission.

So far this nonsense has set me back 1019 bones.

179 for the first temporary filling procedure.

340 for my portion of the root canal. (That was just the estimate. They told me they'd reimburse me if I overpaid, and bill me additionally if I underpaid. I'll give you one guess which way I think that one is going to fall!)

And today, had to pay 500 dollars for my portion of the crown I received to cover up the root canal. (And of course the woman at the dentist's office thinks that it's likely I'll have to pay a couple hundred more when all is said and done.)

Oh, and in case you were wondering...YES I DO carry dental insurance. And the real kick in the teeth (God forbid...I'd need more dental work), my dentist says that comparatively speaking, I have good dental insurance.

Jesus, I'd hate to see what would happen if I had crap dental insurance.

All's I'm saying is that I've already shelled out over 1000 bucks, and I'm not deluding myself into thinking that this is the extent of it.

Ain't that a bitch?

In any event, I made my return to my original dentist. Totally awesome.

I've learned two things from all of this...

1. Avoid fucking strawberry jam as if your oral health depended on it....because it DOES.

2. If you love your dentist, do NOT set him free!

The Eagle Has Landed

2010-01-19T18:30:00.002-05:00

As Boston College students make their way back to the 'hood, the relative quiet of life in Brighton comes to an abrupt halt.

I have to admit that I actually like living in a college neighborhood. That's probably a good thing, because the campus is a two minute walk from my house, and half my building is in habited by BC undergrads. So essentially, what I'm telling you is that my 36 year-old self and my 42 year-old husband are essentially residing in a college dormitory. We do not mistake ourselves to be among the youngsters, but rather have taken on the self-appointed role of "Building Den Parents". Newly arriving students quickly recognize us as the go-to people for advice, directions, and simple kitchen items. Their kitchens are all equipped with keg-o-rators and shot glasses, but they are frequently lacking such basic essentials as a baking sheet or a fork.

"Details," they think, as they pack their bags in preparation for the big arrival on campus.

It seems like the BC kids have had a pretty long winter break this school year. It's been calm and quiet around here for weeks now.

They must have started trickling back within the past 24 hours or so.

I ventured to Cleveland Circle today. One of the things I miss most when BC students are off campus is the awesome BC Shuttle. It stops right in front of my building, and will cart my ass down to Cleveland Circle and back for gratis. Technically I'm sure I'm supposed to have some affiliation with BC in order to ride the bus, and when I first moved into the neighborhood, I never even though to take the shuttle. Then, on night, I saw some 80 year-old couple piling onto the bus alongside a bunch of drunk ass college punks, and I figured, "Oh come on. Grandma and Gramps have NOTHING to do with BC, and yet they're rockin' that bus like it were their own personal chauffeured limo." I climbed aboard, got dropped off at my front door, and have not looked back since!

I finished conducting my business at CVS and then headed to the BC bus stop shelter. There, right on the bench, was a half-drunk cocktail from Roggies (I recognize the glassware). It had a lime and little umbrella and shit in it.

Awww.....BC parents. There's your money well spent!

I am going to suggest to Roggies that they send their barback out there to pick up any errant glassware. That's not joke. That'll end up costing them.

When I came home, the first thing I noticed was that the lower glass panels on the front locked door to the building had been shattered. Oh, that's right. The door buzzer is busted. Most people have been simply telling their friends, through the door intercom, that the buzzer is broken and the door isn't releasing, and then the person in receipt of the visitor comes to actually unlock the door. Now that the BC kids are back, waiting around for a friend to come open the door has clearly been decreed a waste of time, and so the glass pane was shattered clear out so that eager guests can climb right through and report directly to the party!

The second thing I noticed was that there is already an array of beer bottles littering the stairway. Kids, these were NOT here this morning.

I wonder when I'll see my first passed out coed on the stairs. Probably this weekend.

I can't imagine I'm going to have to hold my breath too long to see that familiar sight.

All I know is that there is currently a parade of bulky guys wearing shorts, those gym shower shoes, and ill-fitting BC shirts, lugging cases of beer into the apartment next door to ours. I can only kind of hope that they wait until Friday night to celebrate their return to campus. But hey, if they decide to kick off their revelry tonight, I can hardly blame them.

I used to so look forward to my return to campus after lengthy breaks. No parents. No rules. No official drinking age.

It's kind of fun.

City Upon a Hill. Come Worship.

2010-01-17T08:26:00.005-05:00

My friend called last night, suggesting that we do some shopping and maybe grab a bite to eat.

Shopping? Eating? I'm game.

The only thing I wasn't looking forward to was what I suspected would be her proposed venue for our rendez-vous. Since the Chestnut Hill Mall is located about halfway between us, I kind of knew she was going to throw it out there. Keep in mind, she's a very flexible person. If I told her that I abhor this place and more specifically, the people who frequent it, I'm sure she would easily have agreed to meet me elsewhere. But I couldn't think of anywhere else, and I wasn't feeling like taking the T all over creation, so I agreed to meet here there.

I know I have ranted about "Cambridge People" and "Brookline People" in the past. Let me just say, though, that after you've been exposed to "Chestnut Hill People", those other species look like harmless houseflies.

In Cambridge, where I'm clearly an outsider because I don't have a toddler suckling at my breast in public at all times, at least people will deign to speak to me. They might even hold a door open for me or say "thanks" if I do the same for them. Cambridge people like to be seen as non-judgmental and tolerant of lower life forms such as myself. Even though they are really practicing their humanitarian awards acceptance speeches in their heads when they let me get in line ahead of them at Whole Foods because I only have two apples (which sets me back roughly one month's salary), and they have four shopping carts of tofu, I don't mind. They aren't really looking to help me out, but rather they want their neighbors in the "Fromagerie" to see their act of kindness and bring it up at the next book club meeting. (Think Angelina Jolie traveling to the lowest pits of humanity with a full camera crew and makeup and wardrobe team in tow. Even though she's boosting her own image, and she'll eventually return to her 17 million dollar chateau in France, she's still done something kind for people who have far less than she).

Brookline people don't really care whether they appear to have any humanitarian tendencies. They slam doors in the faces of lowlifes like me. They stare blankly when I greet them. They seem not to be able to register the sound frequencies of the voice pitch of my species. They throw frequent temper tantrums about the 1/4 inch of foam in their latte, as opposed to the 1/5 inch they requested of the barista at Starbucks. Apparently in order to be a barista in a Brookline Starbucks location, one need's PhD in thermo-nuclear physics from MIT. The one thing that manages to salvage Brookline, in my book, is that there are still a few areas of town where people are keepin' it real. There are a couple of grimy spots. Plus the place is constantly infiltrated by Brighton and Alston dwellers, so they get that reality check. So although Brookline people are pretty frightening, and they have no inclination to demonstrate good will to their fellow man, I can still somewhat handle being there. Granted, I usually plan my route through Brookline very carefully so as to minimize my time there. I get in and out of the places I need to go and then retreat to Brighton as soon as I can.

Chestnut Hill is a whole other ball of wax, kids. If you do not personally have the purchasing power of a small, wealthy, Western European nation, you have no business here and your existence will simply not be acknowledged. Well, let me clarify that one. Nobody acknowledges each other's existence in Chestnut Hill. For to do so would be to admit that you are not alone in the world, and that there might be times when, gasp, other people might actually be entitled to do or get something before you. I don't think the people of Chestnut Hill have grasped that concept because it would be too earth-shattering of a reality check. If you venture to Chestnut Hill, you will be bumped aside, crashed into, cut in lines, stepped on, and bowled over. I guarantee that all of the above will happen.

The Chestnut Hill Mall is located on Route 9. I'm still terrified to drive on Route 9. Usually, on Sunday mornings, when I got to the gym in CH, I just walk there. Last night, I decided to walk to the mall.

What I kind of failed to take into account is that it is one thing to walk somewhere in the full daylight hours of a Sunday morning when nobody is around (And I really no mean nobody is around. It's not the CH version of "nobody around" when there really are a lot of other people, but you just don't see past your own nose to realize they're there), and another thing entirely to walk down a highway in the pitch black on a Saturday evening. Granted it was only 5:30 PM, but it might as well have been the dead still of the night.

There are sidewalks, but the side streets leading up to Route 9 were so poorly lit that I admittedly bumped into a few of the 15 feet stone walls that buttress the properties to keep slobs like me away. Then of course motion sensors activate lights and dogs start barking. God forbid a 36 year old middle school teacher walk down the street and accidentally make contact with your stone wall. They'll be sending the contamination crews out there today to delouse the areas of the fence where I had the temerity to make bodily contact.

When I got to Route 9, where there are also, thankfully, sidewalks, I was still kind of terrified. Yes, there are sidewalks, and yes, in other parts of the world that would signal to drivers that they should cede that space to pedestrians. But this is Chestnut Hill and damn it, if somebody wants to drive their BMW 7 series over a sidewalk, well, they just will.

I kept thinking that if I am going to meet my death on a sidewalk, it might as well be on the underside of a luxury automobile. Then again, in Chestnut Hill, a BMW 7 series is somebody's idea of a beater. They were probably driving so damn fast because they wanted to get home to their mansions and house these embarrassing vehicles in their bigger-than-my-condo garages before anybody in a Mybach could see them.

Whatever.

Then I realized that while a lot of the world is really geared more toward drivers than pedestrians, Chestnut Hill would prefer to think that pedestrians don't even exist. Why would anybody need to walk anywhere when they can take their Lexus?

Or maybe they just don't have street lights because it would only make the residents of Chestnut Hill uncomfortable to have to look upon any lowly creature who doesn't have the means to go get a new Rolls Royce for every day of the week, and is rather doomed to walking. Dude, even the #60 bus went by with the lights out! The headlights were on, but the inside of the bus was totally blackened. I could only see the outlines of the house servants, maids, and pool cleaners riding the bus. These folks can't even show their faces. Silhouettes only, please, domestic helpers. Thanks! I don't know who is more pathetic in the eyes of CH people, bus riders or walkers? Oh well, I've been both, so I'm an all around sad sack.

Whatever.

I get to the mall. Bloomingdales? No thanks. I did go into a couple of stores, but I didn't really find anything I liked until I got to Sephora. I found a little something for 9 bucks. I figured I'd pick it up. I was surprised at how long the line was. I hunkered down to wait. There was one general line feeding into the two open registers.

I realized that what was holding up the line was that as the cashiers were ringing up sales, the customers purchasing the items were going into neurotic rants about the items they had chosen AND customers who were shopping on the sales floor kept approaching the registers, asking questions of the cashiers. The cashiers in most stores in most parts of the world would likely explain to such intrusive customers, "Sorry, I'm with a customer here at the register. There are sales people on the floor whould would be happy to help."

But in Chestnut Hill, that doesn't work. As I've already said, each person in Chestnut Hill is the only person in the world. So, the woman who comes to the cashier (*) to ask a question cannot see that the cashier is with another customer, because that other customer simply doesn't exist in her world.

(*) The cashier and other service personnel do exist in Chestnut Hill. Why? Because they are there to wait on people. Amazingly, they have the ability to be seen by all CH residents, although I bet they'd be quite happy to be in possession of a CH invisibility cloak. (I bet JK Rowling got the invisibility cloak idea when she visited Chestnut Hill and realized that nobody could see her!)

Anyway, the cashiers have obviously learned that it is of no use to try to thwart these customers' interruptions, so now they are not only ringing up customers in the line, but they are fielding detailed, CH-neurotic questions about the entire store inventory.

Just as the cashier was finished ringing up the sale in front of me, and turned to me in greeting, some typical Chestnut Hill overly-wealthy, deeply dissatisfied matron lept in front of me, barrel-assed to the open register, and called over her shoulder, "I'm in a real rush here." The saleswoman looked at me, clearly distressed, and I encouraged her to wait on this asshole. What can you do? Anywhere else in the world, I may have stood my ground. But this isn't anywhere else in the world. This is Chestnut Hill. And like the wildlife conservationists always say, when you enter a creature's natural habitat, you need to respect their way of life. Such is the case with Chestnut Hill, I know. I went there willingly. It's like your passport. Read the State Department notification inside. Even though you have an American passport, when you travel to other countries, you are willingly subjecting yourself to the laws of that land.

I will say, though, that maybe there's hope for CH people. As I think of the woman cutting me yesterday, I'm encouraged that she thought to actually yell back at me, "I'm in a rush here." Granted, she did not ask if she could cut me. She did no apologize. She did not thank me when I allowed her to cut. But she must have at least seen me there. That's progress. Maybe she was born elsewhere and has moved to CH, and thus has some primal memories of a time when there were other people in her world.

Who knows?

All I know is that I was happy as a clam to get the hell out of there last night.

I do not belong in Chestnut Hill.

I do not expect people to grovel at my feet...

I dot not have money to burn....

And more importantly, I don't want to belong there.

See ya in Brighton!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do...Unless the Person You're Breaking Up With Has No Idea That You've Broken Up With Them. Then It's Not So Bad.

2010-01-16T16:22:00.004-05:00

I've recently had two pretty dramatic breakups and reconciliations. The strange thing is that I'm the only party, in each situation, who has been left emotionally drained. In both circumstances, the receiving end of the breakup/reconciliation had no idea that anything had ever happened.

Of course I have to harken back to my life's recent dental drama to recount the first one-sided breakup and reconciliation.

About two years ago, my husband told me that I should see his dentist. He said that his dentist was happy to take me on as a patient. I was sure to make my husband check with this dentist to make sure that he could handle my manic behavior in the dental chair. My husband asked, and the dentist assured him it would be no problem. We could start "seeing" eacho other, thanks to my husband acting as the go-between to negotiate the terms of the relationship. (Doesn't this sound like 7th grade romance? Remember sending your friend across the school yard to confirm that your object of affection felt the same way about you?)

My very first visit to this dentist resulted in my getting a filling. Drills were involved, as you can imagine. I did my usual dental dance. I shook, trembled, yelped, cried...you get the picture. The dentist was totally unfazed by it. He was encouraging and calming. He called me dear and reassured me that I was doing a great job. He even called me later that evening to make sure that everything was going OK, and to tell me that I had been "very brave."

Now I'm no idiot. I know the guy probably rued the day he decided to pursue a career in dentistry after he was confronted with my antics in his office. And we all know that he must have turned to his staff in disgust/dismay as soon as I left. They probably all demanded raises and he was probably obligated to give them to them just to keep them employed at his office.

At the very least we can hope they had a good laugh at my expense behind my back, but in all probability, they had to go into group therapy for PTSD after dealing with me.

But the long and short of it all is that the guy was awesome. I knew it was love at first filling. THIS was MY dentist!

I even have referred a few fellow dental-phobes to this guy, and they all love him, too.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I busted a tooth while biting into a seed in strawberry jelly. Yeah, I'm not even joking.

I went to the dentist, and he hooked me up with some massive filling thingee. He had been talking about some horrifying sounding periodontal procedure, but seemed, after his examination and filling, to think that that would not be necessary.

Things were great for a a while, but eventually the filling started to kind of hurt. When I called to check in with the dentist, I thought he sounded a little jerky on the phone with me. I was shocked by his behavior. I got all in my head over it and decided that I could not allow a person who was annoyed with me to come at me with a dental drill. I've pretty much got the anxiety level maxed out. No need to compound it.

So, I decided I had to break up this till-then harmonious relationship. I decided to go elsewhere to have the filling checked out. And of course, we all know where that landed me. Root canal city, baby.

The asshole who performed the root canal made me feel so horrible about myself. He yelled at me throughout the procedure, and then said, "Thank god I don't have too many patients like you. It would be very draining on me."

Not to worry...I did confront him and remind him that I had spoken directly with him on the phone and warned him of my anxiety. At one point in our conversation, he said, "Oh, don't worry. You can't be that bad." I was quick to assure him that, "Yes. Yes I am that bad. And in fact, I'm 100 times worse. And that's just when I walk through your door."

Of course my retort was not as strong as I would have hoped for. My face was numb with novocaine, so I am pretty sure I was drooling all over the place while I mumbled my rant. I don't even know if the guy knew what the hell I was talking about.

But I left there feeling like a jerk. I was thinking, "My dentist would NEVER do this to me. Not to my face."

I was all upset that night, lamenting to my husband the fact that I had broken up with my dentist. I rethought our conversation on the phone. Was he really being jerky to me, or was he just asking me questions to try to figure out what was going on? Was I so anxious about it that I read into his tone? Did I completely let my phobia cloud my judgment of the conversation? I mean, really. The guy had NEVER been a jerk to me before.

It was my husband who pointed out that it since the dentist was never aware of the fact that I had broken up with him, I could reconcile with him...again, without his even being aware of it. Then I started fretting over how I would justify my straying to another dentist for this root canal. I knew my dentist would take it hard. We've been building up our relationship for so long. If anybody was going to earn my trust to rip an entire tooth apart in my head, it should rightfully have been him. I mean, he did all this work with me and then for the "big show" I called in a wannabe, second rate understudy.

Stephen pointed out that since I had the procedure on a Saturday, we could depict it as an emergency, where I woke up and was in terrible pain and we went to that office because they had Saturday hours and he does not.

Great plan. Reconciliation in the bag.

I still have to get a crown to finish this nightmare. I called my original dentist's office and explained the "emergency root canal" procedure to the secretary. Stephen had an appointment there for a cleaning Thursday. As the hygienist was bracing him to get the cleaning underway, the dentist came in and asked what had happened to me. Luckily Stephen and I had our stories straight, because he explained the whole "emergency" thing. The dentist was very sympathetic and explained that he always responds to emergency calls and that I should never go through anything like that again.

So, he has no idea that we suffered a brief breakup and staged a reconciliation. As far as he's concerned, we've had a peaceful (well, ok, maybe not peaceful...I'm hardly at my best in his office) and uninterrupted relationship for the past 2 years.

Why am I always the one suffering in dental situations, and the dentists always
escape unscathed?

My second one-sided breakup took place today.

I got a letter in the mail from my gym. I expect it every January. It's the rate increase letter.

I usually just suck it up. This year, however, the increase just bothered me.

I had already gone to the gym, and I rocked my two awesome Saturday morning classes. Then I got home and found this letter.

I decided, "That's it. I'm breaking up with Healthworks!"

In my head, they were already dumped and kicked to the curb. Out of my life. Good riddance! Who needs a clean, well-maintained, superbly-equipped gym with loads of classes on tap at all hours of the day? Not me! I'm going to Bally's!

And I did. I walked down to Bally's. I was all but resolved to just join up.

People, the first thing that assaulted me on the walk in was the stench. It was like walking directly into a filthy gym sock. Then I looked over and saw a guy working out in Skidz. SKIDZ!!!! I looked at the calendar on the desk to check the date. Yep...just like I thought, 2010. Apparently this gym is in some kind of time warp. Then I saw another guy who was sweating so much hair gel out of his buzz cut that every time he touched the handles of his treadmill, you could just see the grease coating growing thicker. The guy behind the desk was missing a front tooth. I know I'm hardly one to talk at this point, but really? That's the receptionist? That's "the face" of Bally's fitness? I know there are all kinds of myths about women walking around in full faces of makeup. Actually, most of the women there seemed kind of normal. And the guys didn't seem lecherous or anything, but they were cheesy and gross at worst, and stuck in a different decade at best.

I didn't get very far into the discussion with the guy behind the desk. Just far enough to find out that they don't have any fitness group exercise classes, that the only words "Rough and Toothless" seemed capable of muttering at me were "you can purchase personal training packages for an additional rate" and to be offered a free can of "Rock Star Energy Drink" if I joined today.

Ah....I'm gonna give all of that a miss.

So, I gracefully exited the club and resolved to continue paying my monthly membership dues at Healthworks. If I divide the membership into weekly payments in my head, I think of all the silly ways I could spend that amount of money weekly and have nothing to show for it. At least I actually use the gym all the time, and the money spend is an investment in my health.

So, I decided to smooth things over with Healthworks and reconcile.

Damn, all this breaking up and making up has taken its toll on me emotionally. I'm glad to have this three day weekend to recover.

Go "Figure"

2010-01-14T20:11:00.003-05:00

I had to go to Marathon Sports today to get a new pair of sneakers. I had to replace the ones that I lost and/or were stolen from the gym. I was sure I had left them at the gym, and when I went in to check with the lost and found folks, I was surprised to find that they were not there. The gym employee told me, "Oh yeah, you'd be surprised at how many people find and then keep sneakers. We get iPods, phones, wallets, and other valuables turned in all the time. But sneakers? They mysteriously go missing all the time."

Really? Used gym sneakers? Smelly used gym sneakers?

Go figure.

Anyway, I had to just buy my old standby, the Brooks Adrenaline GTS. I think the first time I bought these, they were in the 4th generation of them. Now they're all flashy and disco-ball encrusted. They're in the 9th generation now. They cost 104 dollars! I was thinking of sticking with the horrible, too-big Saucony shoes that I had as backup, but I was feeling the onset of the dreadful Plantar Faciitis pain that had me grounded a couple of years ago. No thanks on that one. But for reals, 104 dollars? I would NEVER spend 104 dollars on shoes that I would actually wear out and about. And yet, I willingly spend it on shoes that I only wear at the gym.

Go figure.

On a much more serious note, one that makes me almost embarrassed to prattle on about the pointless drivel that pretty much constitutes my daily life...

I have been shocked by the scope of the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti. My god. Have you been following this? It is pretty amazing that these natural disasters always seem to befall the most impoverished, and therefore already-quite-fucked places in the world. I mean, Jesus. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. Did they really need this on top of all that?

I hadn't even thought this through clearly this morning when I mused to myself, "God, if that happened here, we would be self-sufficient enough to bail our own residents out."

Then I thought of Katrina. What the hell happened there.

But seriously, back to the earthquake in Haiti. They already have absolutely nothing and now this?

Go figure.

OOOOHHHHMMMMMMMM......

2010-01-13T18:42:00.003-05:00

Today it sucked when the alarm clock went off early. I was about to get all annoyed about getting up early, but then I thought...."I survived a root canal yesterday. Early morning alarm clock? Ha! That's nothing." Suddenly, I was exceedingly serene and happy to greet the early morning. Serenity now.

I got to school and the students told me that the substitute teacher berated me for about twenty minutes because I had mis-numbered the quiz I left behind for them to do. I was feeling all hot under the collar at first. How dare that asshole berate me publicly in front of my students? Then I thought, "Screw that shit. I survived a root canal yesterday. Public flogging by a jackass who gets paid 60 bucks a day to deal with this nonsense? Ha!" I just serenely told my students that any person who would publicly criticize a woman he didn't know in front of her students was a far lower life form than the teacher whose Microsoft word auto-formatting sabotaged her quiz numbering. Serenity now.

I called Target today to see if they had a specific item. "Sure," they said, "We have plenty of those in stock." When I went over there to pick up said item, I found out that in fact, not only do they not have this item, but that they have not carried it for some time. I was about to go all Ralph Nayder consumer advocate on their ass, but then I thought, "Really, Nants? You're gonna get upset over this crap when you survived a root canal yesterday? Let this one go!" Incompetent Target employee?? Ha! I smiled and apologized to the woman at the customer service desk, stating that clearly the mistake must have been mine. Surely I misunderstood the woman whom I had spoken with earlier. They called the Target in Watertown and confirmed that the item was there and would be set aside for me. Serenity now.

I was stuck behind some jackass who must have learned to drive at the Stevie Wonder Auto School. I was about to honk his ass into oblivion, but then I thought, "No way. I survived a freakin' root canal yesterday. Slow driver who refuses to use directionals? Ha!" Serenity now.

Somebody at Shaws nearly hobbled me for life with her shopping cart. I was about to turn around and tell her where to shove that godforsaken carriage. But then I thought, "Christ! I survived a root canal yesterday. Coming away from a trip to the seafood counter with a permanent limp? Ha!" Serenity now.

Basically, that's my new outlook on life. When something looks difficult, challenging, or overall shitty, I'm just going to think of how I survived being restrained by three people while a dentist shoved an injection directly through a dental nerve and I'm going to think, "HA!"

Serenity now.

Would You Rather...??

2010-01-12T11:04:00.001-05:00

I took the day off so that I can go for my root canal this afternoon. The appointment isn't until 2:30, and I'm sure that my fabulous principal would have let me leave school early to get to the dentist on time, but here's the thing..

I'm on some two-part sedative pill therapy. I took the first one last night before going to bed and I'll take the second one today one hour before the procedure. The doctor promises that it will calm me down and leave me with a heightened feeling of relaxation. I'm kind of expecting to walk in there all calm, with images of kitties prancing through pastures and shit dancing through my head, but then going into full panic mode once I catch the first glimpse of a dental instrument of torture.

I had no choice but to take the whole day off. I'm already a basket case. It would not have been a good day around the kids. I would have felt really badly with them having to put up with me in this state of anxiety.

So I'm hanging out at home and I'm watching the Law and Order SVU marathon. (Jesus, is there ever NOT an Law and Order SVU Marathon on?)

I'm watching the victims and perps in these episodes fret over their problems, and I'm thinking, "Yeah...that's nothing. I gotta get a freakin' ROOT CANAL! How do you think I feel."

I'm seriously thinking that all of the "hardships" I've seen on this show so far would be welcome alternatives to what I'm facing in the dental chair later today.

I'm inspired by that game, 'Would You Rather?"

Here are a few Law and Order/Dental Surgery "Would You Rather" scenarios:

1. Would you rather:
A. Be pushed down a flight of New York City cement subway stairs?
B. Endure a Root Canal?

Personally, I'm gonna have to go with the subway stairs.

2. Would you rather:
A. Be murdered and then have your organs harvested and sold by black market low-lifes?
B. Endure a Root Canal?

I'm gonna have to say that I'm all for organ donation. I'll go for A.

3. Would you rather:
A. Have a stalker track your every move and terrorize you at every turn?
B. Endure a root canal.

I'm thinking that as long as my stalker isn't a dentist, I'll easily opt for A.

4. Would you rather:
A. Be kidnapped by a disgusting pervert and taken in a van all over New York City?
B. Endure a root canal.

You know, New York is a great city, and travel by subway has the disadvantage that you can't really enjoy the sights. At least in the van I might catch a glance of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. I'm going to have to opt for A again.

5. Would you rather:
A. Have your apartment completely torn apart by angry police officers with a search warrant?
B. Endure a root canal.

I'm going to have to go for A. I need some redecoration inspiration. Maybe the upturning of my sofa and the hurling of my bookshelves to the other side of the room would be like an interior decorating muse.

6. Would you rather:
A. Face hours on end of police interrogation?
B. Endure a root canal.

All the TV shows I watch show the cops giving their interrogation subjects sandwiches and coffee. How bad could that be? I'm going to have to go with A.

7. Would you rather:
A. Find our that your high school aged kid is running a drug smuggling ring out of the school bathroom?
B. Endure a root canal.

At least the high school kid will be taken to jail and out of your hair. Just think, an extra bedroom to turn into a home office. I'm going to have to opt for B again.

8. Would you rather:
A. Be the victim of identity theft?
B. Endure a root canal.

Hey, if somebody so badly wants to be me, they can even go and have my stupid root canal. I'm all about A.

Do you see a trend in my answers?

Not So Gentle Dental

2010-01-10T17:30:00.003-05:00

Maybe I should have been more skeptical of this outpost of a chain dental practice that's wedged between an Irish bar of ill repute and a check cashing store in Brighton Center. Maybe the homeless guy living in the lobby of the building that houses said dental practice should have been a flashing warning beacon. Maybe the receptionist who made Tammy Faye Baker look all dewey and fresh-faced should have served as a deterrent.

But I was in pain and the dentist who I've revered and respected for the past couple of years was actually MEAN to me when I called up to tell him I was experiencing some discomfort following the repair he did on my fractured tooth. I normally get a lot of patience, sympathy, and prompt treatment from this guy. I expected him to clear his calendar and race into the office to put me out of my misery when I called. Instead, he told me to keep taking 800 mg. of Advil every 8 hours until my scheduled dental cleaning on January 21st. Keep in mind, I had already been taking that dosage of Advil since December 20th, and I placed the call in question on January 4th.

I'm no great fan of my stomach, and sometimes I feel pretty anxious to blast it away, but burning a hole through it with Advil didn't really appeal to me.

So, I made the call to Gentle Dental. I knew they had lots of office locations, and, most importantly, Saturday hours.

I got an appointment for the Brighton Center location on Saturday. Two seconds after evaluating my X-Ray, the dentist proclaimed me in need of a root canal. So we got that underway. I can't really bring myself to describe it again. Read the previous post if you really need to know about my dental trauma.

At the conclusion of the appointment, the doctor handed me an Rx for vicodin. Clearly, then, he was anticipating pain. I thought I was being a good patient in asking, "What kind of pain is normal? What should I expect and when should I be alarmed?"

He assured me that he had left me poised to experience low, dull, throbbing pain, but that there would not be any nerve pain or sensation.

GREAT. Now we're in business.

This morning when I woke up, I almost fainted at the sharp, shooting, through-the-nerve pain in my tooth. I literally almost fell over when it hit me. I've never felt anything like it before and I never EVER want to experience it again.

Had there been a cliff nearby, I would have happily walked right off it. I do live on the 6th floor of my building, so I could have jumped out the window, but these storm windows are a bitch to open. Plus, knowing me, the only damage I'd do in the fall is break more teeth, which would make this whole scenario worse.

Anyway, I figured, "OK, this pain is exactly what he said NOT to expect. I'm going to call the emergency number." So, I look up the office online. There is a phone number there, and it explains that if a patient calls after normal business hours (Sunday), she should expect to get the emergency beeper number on the outgoing voicemail.

Thank Goodness.

So, I call and guess what......????

Not only is there no human voice announcing the number as belonging to Gentle Dental of Brighton, but there is absolutely NO information regarding any emergency contact number. There was just some automated voice saying, "Hello. Please leave a message."

FOR REALZZZ??????????

Yeah....for realz.

In an utter state of panic, I called the Brookline Gentle Dental location, and I get the absolute nicest, kindest human being on the phone. He is a dentist and he explained that what I'm going through is normal and that the other dentist probably should not have promised me absolutely no nerve pain. He said some patients have no nerve pain, but others do. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

Funny how your nerves calm down when you are in pain, but you at least know that it is "normal."

I left a scathing message for the corporate Gentle Dental folks. I don't give a shit. I am not going back there to have my root canal finished.

But come on, people, whose job was it to check the freakin' outgoing voice message and switch it on when the office closed yesterday??? That seems like something that should be in the normal realm of responsibilities for the office receptionist. She was probably too busy putting on another layer of foundation to get the job done.

The guy on call from that office is probably all psyched to have a nice, quiet weekend. Meanwhile, the Brookline office is all swamped with emergency calls and shit. Or maybe they just did a caller ID thing on their phone and programmed it to thwart my attempts to contact them. Everybody else got the proper outgoing message, but I was call blocked. After all, it's easier than having me in there shaking, trembling, crying, and whatever the hell else I did to compromise the very core of my integrity, self-respect, and dignity.

Anyway, I took about 800 Advil this morning to quell that pain. I had to turn on the radio to have some sort of distraction. I put on NPR. I figured they might be running a story about some third world country whose residents lots are worse than my own. Again, seeking solace in the misery of others is a great therapy for one's own suffering. Instead, there was a story on about the economy. They were talking about how Obama should try to get to the "root" of the problem by "extracting" the expendable income and taking a "bite" out of.....

whatever. I turned it off at that point.

Really, NPR...tooth metaphors. Is that the best you can do? Don't you have any sympathy for my suffering?

Apparently not.

OK, I'm out.

The Soundtrack to My Root Canal

2010-01-09T11:26:00.002-05:00

This morning I experienced the utter horror of a root canal procedure. Actually, to be more precise, I endured the beginning of a root canal procedure. I have to return next week sometime for the remainder of the treatment. The doctor told me to expect to be in the chair for at least another two hours. But kids, the fun doesn't stop there. You see, upon completion of the root canal, I will have to get a crown to quite literally "top it all off".

I am armed with vicodin and prescription strength ibuprofin, both of which I fully expect to use. The novocaine has not even come close to wearing off. My entire face is numb, but I can STILL feel the post procedural pain deep down in my gums. I am not looking forward to the full force of the pain when the novocaine eventually does wear off. Suffice it to say I'll be spending a majority of the weekend in a dope-induced haze.

Will it be a bad idea to down the entire 12 pack of Michelobe Ultra that we have in our fridge along with the vicodin? I'm not actively planning that self-prescribed pain therapy "cocktail", but if need be, I'll self-medicate.

I was sitting there after the assistant gave me the X-Ray. She walked into the room with the X-Ray and said, "Yeah, you're gonna definitely need a root canal." The dentist walked in, looked over her shoulder at the X-Ray, and quickly concurred.

FUCK!

People, I am not proud of this, but I actually started crying. I really, really did. The guy hadn't even touched me yet and already I had lost all semblance of composure. Let's just say that it all went down hill from there.

The guy started explaining the procedure to me, giving me the blow by blow of what he was going to do. I actually stopped him and said, "Doctor, look at me. Do I look like I want or need to know what is going to happen in my mouth?" He considered that for a moment and decided to stop talking. Good call, doctor. Good call.

He did say that the alternative to performing the root canal would be to just extract the tooth. Christ, though. I don't want to look like a Jersey Shore cast member.

During the procedure, there were times when I FELT what was going on. Horror of all horrors. I would not wish this on anybody else. I really, really would not. I wouldn't even inflict it on the person who invented skinny jeans.

Anyway, back to the title of my post.

Of course I expected the usual cacophony of drills, scraping, suctioning, picking, grinding and whatever the hell else one's ears are assaulted with during a dental visit.

What I was not expecting was that the rather loud music issuing forth from the surround sound speakers would be coming from the XM Satellite Disco radio station.

Cool.

I did feel kinda bad for the really elderly Russian Jewish Orthodox woman who was clearly flustered and uncomfortable during Donna Summer's "Love to Love You, Baby". Not quite the Bubushka's musical preference, I guess.

The sad thing is that some of the awesome songs that would ultimately become the soundtrack to my root canal have been ruined for me forever. And they were all songs that, prior to 9:00 this morning, I LOVED!

Here's the list:

1. The Hustle: The dentist wheels the tray of torture devices (dental instruments) into the room just as the song is starting up. The once seemingly innocent whispers of "Do it!" at the beginning of the song suddenly take on extremely sinister overtones. Listen, guy, just hustle on up and get this thing over and done with.

2. I Wanna Be Your Lover: The dentist starts inserting some "dental dam" into my mouth. I probably don't need to say much more than that.

3. Off the Wall: I'm going off the wall as the dentist tells me that he things the 19 shots of novocaine that he has given me so far are going to provide sufficient anesthesia for the procedure ahead.

4. Happy Birthday To You (Steevie Wonder): I'm ruing the day I was ever born and the 36 years of moments that lead up to the busted tooth that landed me in this damn chair.

5. YMCA: I'm thinking, "Why don't I just have the damn guy pull out my tooth? Then I can just be a toothless wonder living at the Y. Anything would be better than having to endure this crap.

6. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough: Great idea. I've had more than enough. Let's put down the drills and STOP!

7. Give it to Me Baby: This ditty came on as the dentist was removing some long tube thing and INSERTING it somewhere in my tooth area, presumably into the root. Why oh why did I even look? Why? I'll have that image seared into my head forever. He gave it to me, Baby, alright.

8. There But For the Grace of God Go I: I realize that people walking outside might have a view through the long blinds. I might be on display having a root canal for the world to see. I'm sure the people on the street were thinking, "Oh, Jesus, look at that poor bastard getting a root canal. There but for the grace of God go I." That's what I'd be thinking if I saw some other sucker having a root canal.

9. Fly Robin Fly: I was pretty sure I was going to fly right out of the chair when the doctor hit an area that somehow was impervious to the effects of the novocaine.

10. Lady's Night: As the doctor was handing me the vicodin prescription, I was thinking, "It's gonna be party time tonight!"

But seriously folks, I'm blogging now because I fully expect the pain level to get ugly as the day goes on. I can't imagine I'll be in any shape to sit at the computer later on.

The double edge sword is that I didn't eat before my appointment, and I can't eat now because I'm totally numb. And I can't take the painkiller on an empty stomach. Damn, I wish I had thought that out better.

Gotta go watch "The Rise and Fall of Tiger Woods." I have to feel better about myself and the only way to do that it to bask in the glory of somebody else's failures. Sorry Tiger.

What was I thinking when....?

2010-01-07T20:54:00.004-05:00

1. I told my husband, "Go right ahead. Put on that Netflix movie featuring early footage of Metallica!" To be honest with you, it sounds either like Metallica were performing in a tin can, or that my 4 year-old niece recorded them using her Fisher Price "my-first-boom-box" radio. Possibly both.

2. I expected the 7-day T pass that I purchased to actually work?

3. I called the T, expecting a quick and convenient solution to remedy said 7-day pas SNAFU? Of course I have to haul ass all the way over to Park Street to get the pass re-encoded. (?? HUH??)

4. I expected there to actually be a T employee manning the cavernous Porter Square station? Naturally there was no such person there and so I cannot get my pass to activate the automated door to allow me the access I need to the train to take me to Park Street to get the pass squared away? (When I called the T to find out what was going on, the woman quite seriously asked me why on earth nobody was working the Porter Square station. Seriously. She really did. I guess I'm now in charge of scheduling ground personnel for the entire MBTA system. Damn.)

5. I sent the two students whose lifelong goal seems to be to elevate procrastination and lollygagging to high artforms to get the morning fruit snacks today?

6. I bought three sweaters from three separate stores without trying them on last weekend? Of course I HATE all of them and have to bring them back. So much for saving a few minutes in the fitting room. This will amount to hours standing in return lines. And of course, I'll have to negotiate the T on the aforementioned busted pass in order to get downtown. Not the brightest move I've ever made.

7. I skipped right over the introductory workout in the Jillian Michaels "30 Day Shred" video? I thought I was in some semblance of decent enough shape to take on a 30 minute workout. Yeah..right!

8. I decided to wear a really heavy sweater to work today all while failing to account for the wildly fluctuating temperatures in my building? Today it was about 96 degrees in my classroom. Why not shed the sweater, you ask? Well, I had a maroon bra and a really flimsy white t-shirt under said sweater. Not a professional look.

9. I opted for a career that requires me to be coherent enough to deal with dozens of teenagers at ungodly early hours of the morning.

10. I poured myself a Diet Coke just moments before heading to bed for the evening? I guess I'm kidding myself if I think I'll be getting any sleep with this Metallica thing blaring in the background anyway.

11. I allowed myself to sit entranced in front of the boob tube watching two full hours of "LA Ink" over the Christmas vacation. Those are two hours of my life I'll never get back.

12. I somehow lost my sneakers. Yeah. Lost. As in...I can't find them. I do not have small feet. Two of my sneakers should not be hard to find.

I'm sure there are a few other gems I'm leaving out. As the Metallica video blares in the background, I'm thinking that I did well in placing it in this list's top position.

Happy New Year....In Moderation

2010-01-06T18:45:00.004-05:00

Merry New Year!!

I've resolved to write more in 2010.

The reason I didn't revive my blog on January first was that I had already engaged in some serious self-sabotage before even getting started. You see, I did the whole, "I'm going to write on my blog every single day" thing. It's a way too ambitious goal and so, knowing full well that I would never come close to making it, I quit before I even tried.

That's the thing with New Year's resolutions. They're always too damn big and overly ambitious. We set ourselves up for failure by making our goals way too lofty and unattainable.

Take, as a case in point, the common resolution to get to the gym. People don't simply resolve to get to the gym a few times a week. They promise themselves they'll get there every single day of the new year. Realistic? Hardly. Life gets in the way. The very first day the person does NOT get to the gym, he immediately feels as if he's failed, and then he stops going altogether.

We don't just resolve to try to eat better. We tell ourselves we will eat nothing but carrots for an entire year. The first time we indulge in a piece of candy, we throw our healthy eating resolutions out completely and pull up a chair at the local Old Country Buffet and eat ourselves into a diabetic coma.

So, in the spirit of setting realistic goals, ones that I can dust myself off and get back on the horse if I fall off, here's what I'm trying to do:

1. Write more frequently. Maybe I'll publish to my blog a couple of times a week. I had initially thought I would blog every single day. There, see....an overambitious goal. When I failed to take to my blog on January 1st, I figured I'd failed. However, today I thought, "How stupid. Just because I have not written within the first five days of January does that mean that I have to refrain from writing all year?" Hells no. So, here I am, sufficiently dusted off and newly resolved to write when I can. And that's going to have to be good enough.

2. I had originally told myself that I would give up wine and beer forever and ever and ever. Then I had a beer on January 1st. Hey wait, though...that doesn't mean that I have to give up altogether and just hook myself up to a beer IV. So, I've readjusted that goal as well. Now I'm just refraining from having any booze on school nights. It's been working rather nicely. The great thing about it is that I never drank heavily through the week. I might have a beer or two a couple of times a week. But I can live without that. It's easier on the waistline, liver, and wallet.

There are a couple more things I'm going to try to do better or more/less frequently. Notice that I'm not saying there are a few things I'll do perfectly or that I'll always/never do.

I'm resolving to resolve in moderation.

2009-01-19T08:09:00.001-05:00

I was just checking out the gym schedule. I have today off and I have to get to the gym. I went to a really early spinning class yesterday and the proceeded to sit around on my sofa the entire day. (That's not entirely true. For a couple of hours I was lying on my sofa, not sitting.)

As a result of this inactivity, my back is killing me. Maybe it sounds strange, but my back hurts more when I am totally sedentary than it does when I'm up and moving around.

So, normally I go to the gym at 5:30 on Monday nights, but if I have the day off (as is the case today) I try to get my workout in earlier. I checked the schedule at all three gyms, and the one that looks most promising is the "Forza" class in Back Bay. Forza is apparently some kind of Japanese samaurai (spelling?) sword workout. I have seen the baskets of wooden sword thingees sitting there a million times and never quite knew what they were for. Well..I guess I'm about to find out.

If I can still move after the class (because I think it might be pretty freakin' hard), I'll let you know how things worked out.

In other news, I am SICK AS HELL OF SNOW. It has been falling non stop in Boston for the entire month of January. Actually, it started back in September. There have been a couple of mild days where the snow on the ground would finally melt away. This would occur, of course, just in time for the next deep freeze and snow storm to move in and take up long term residence. There is snow on the ground that I'm convinced is going to stay there until April. Actually, since April has turned to full-on winter here in New England, it might just sit there until May.

What the hell?

It is really hard to sit here in this arctic freeze and contemplate the concept of global warming. I'm not a denier at all. I'm just saying that it's hard to sit here watching Noah Wylie cry about the polar bears losing their natural habitat in the north pole. Hell....just send 'em down to Boston. They'll be fine.

Guilty as Charged

2009-01-08T19:43:00.002-05:00

I got a jury duty summons yesterday. My service date is April 2nd. The last time I was called to serve on a Jury was a few years ago. My service date was set for August. I requested a postponement because I figured it would be better to take the day off of school rather than serve on my own time in the summer. LOL. The funny thing was that instead of getting a new date, I got a letter basically telling me that they would not need me after all.

The last time I went to jury duty, I sat on a trial for almost two weeks. My courtroom was directly one floor above the Louise Woodward trial. The media frenzy was fun and kind of exciting. (Remember Louise...the British Nanny who killed the baby in her care?)

This time I'll be serving in Boston. Last time I was in Cambridge. Hopefully I won't get seated and I'll be dismissed early enough to enjoy a lovely day of shopping at nearby Faneuil Hall.

Can you believe that I was able to confirm my juror service online? Man...what can't we do online these days?

In other news, I went to my thyroid doctor today. He said I look much better than the last time I saw him, when, to use his own words, I was "an absolute mess." He asked if people have told me I look better. Ah...not so much.

It turns out I might actually now be hypothyroid (the original problem was hyperthyroidism). Sometimes the medication can overtreat the hyperthyroidism. The doctor explained that the thyroid is a pretty temperamental gland that is difficult to property regulate. The dosage of medication has to be tweaked a bunch before things calm down. The telltale signs of the hyperthyroidism were apparently my warm hands, bulging eyes, shaky hands, and edginess. This time the doctor remarked that my extremities seem colder, that the shakes are gone, and that my heart rate was really slow. This, he asserts, could be the result of my regular exercise, so he's not sure. But I'm kinda hoping it is hypo because I have packed on a little bit of weight on this stupid medication. Oh well..it is what it is. I'll find out Monday.

Hmm..what else. Nothing I guess.

Stephen is playing some inane war video game on his new laptop. All these guns are firing and people are calling out in shock and pain. Yeah, he's 41.

Latest Musings

2009-01-07T18:51:00.005-05:00

I don't blog enough, that's for sure. When I think about blogging, I get all overwhelmed because I always let so much time elapse between posts. Then I wonder if I have to go back and update all of you on everything that's transpired in my life. Because that's such a daunting thought, I opt out of blogging.

But just today a couple of thoughts have occurred to me.

1. Not that much actually happens in my life, so I'm hardly buried under interesting stories that must be conveyed in painstaking detail.

2. Even if I were drowning in wondrous stories of misadventure and mayhem, it would be awfully presumptuous of me to feel as if you were all out there awaiting my detailed retelling of every last detail. To believe that would be to labor (falsely, of course) under the delusion that all of you are in such dire need of a life as to necessitate your holding your collective breath waiting for my next missive. How arrogant of me.

3. It is completely OK for me to check in periodically and just rant on about whatever happens to be on my mind at any particular time. So what if I don't talk about everything that's transpired in my life since my last entry. Because...after all, as I've concluded in thought number 2, you guys probably don't give a crap anyway!

How liberating. So, I'll blog when I can. No more guilt about letting too much time elapse. No more cowering under the girth of all that has been left unreported on or unsaid. Just pure, unadulterated joy of self-expression when the mood hits.

Ahhh.....

(That was a sigh of relief.)

Anyway, I got myself a new phone. Very cute. It is the LG En V. I was thinking about going on the iPhone, but I decided to stick with Verizon Wireless. I know a lot of people have reported having horrendous service, but I have always had stellar, exemplary service from Verizon, so I'm going to stick there. Also, the phone was cheaper than the iPhone, which made me happy.

This thing is cute, cute, cute. It is blood red, which makes me feel fun, yet more grown up than my pink Motorolla RazR. (I grew pretty tired of that thing). The thing I like best about my phone is that it goes online! Yippie. I can bypass the firewalls at school and play around on Facebook on my prep periods! LOL. Now I can keep up to speed with all the silly online antics of my friends and family members throughout the day. No need to wait until I go home. I can engage in that silly, intellectually empty activity on the clock. I LOVE it! I also like that the plan I'm on is relatively reasonably priced (around 65 dollars a month, I think) for unlimited texting to any network, unlimited data usage, and all kinds of other little bells and whistles! I'm very happy with my new little gadget. I'm not much of a gadget freak, and this phone is hardly cutting edge to any hardcore electronic freak, but it does the trick for me. Case in point, during our mindless, pointless, boring, and idiotic staff meeting today at work, I was all over the web. It was great. Money well spent!

Switching topics...

In my ongoing addiction to TV shows I had never seen before getting our cable package expanded beyond our previous ghetto package, I've started watching House.

It's an interesting show. I love House's acerbic wit. He's great. Cheeky, obnoxious, self-centered, dark, and brooding. He's my type of guy. And he's just a little bit gorgeous, isn't he? Must be the blue eyes. OK...enough about that. The show has other merits. I encourage you to watch it to discover them on your own.

I've also become quite the addict of "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain."

Maybe I have a thing for snarky older guys. Or maybe it's just that I like entertaining TV shows. Who can say for sure?

OK...I think I'm done. I'm hungry and I'm off to make some dinner.

I have tomorrow off. I called in sick so that I can go see my thyroid doctor. I think I need a medication dosage adjustment. Christ...what an annoyance.

Oh..and one last thing. Today the city for which I work had an "Employee Perks Fair" at city hall. The problem is the we teachers are required to stay in school until 2:45. Today we had meetings at other schools at 2:45 until 4:14. The employee perk fair went from 11-4. So, when were we supposed to get there?

You tell me.

Stupid.

It takes a village...

2008-12-13T19:44:00.003-05:00

I have a few things to talk about this evening. And yeah, it's Saturday night at 7:44 and I'm sitting in my living room watching bad TV (Stylista on VH1) with no intention of going out. What of it? We can't all be my hip, fashionable, cool, socially sought-after, young-sprite-of-a-thing, painfully cool cousin Bobby, who has been to some happening Christmas party every night since the beginning of December. Some of us are elderly losers who look forward to solitary Saturday nights at home in front of bad shows.

LOL.

Anyway, Lauren, my mother, and I went to Foxwoods casino this weekend. I'm a VERY unseasoned gambler. This was only my second time in a casino.

I got down to Foxwoods and quite honestly didn't know what to do when I got to the casino. Actually, I hit the hotel gym when we first arrived, and Lauren and my mother went down to the Casino. I had to have my mother meet me at the entrance to the casino and walk me through all the money exchanging processes and give me a brief (OK...extensive) tutorial as to how to play the machines. I was totally clueless.

My first series of games resulted in my losing twenty dollars in as many seconds. Honestly. I found out that I had been playing "dollar slots." Every game cost me a dollar. I guess I should have just stripped out of my shirt and handed it to the door attendant at the casino. It would have been easier. Then again, NOBODY needs to see that shit, so forget it. I'll keep it all buttoned up.

Not long after entering into the casino, I found a "Village People" slot machine! Nice.

I won some cash on the thing. It was red hot for a while. Nobody could touch me. I was getting ready to singlehandedly take down the entire casino. I was winning around 200 dollars. I don't think Foxwoods has ever seen anybody on a red hot roll like that. They'll be talking about it for years. And I'm sure they were sweating the loss.

I cashed out and took my winnings to the Hard Rock cafe, where we proceeded to call Reesie. Sorry, Reese...we were about fifteen cheap ass free drinks into the evening by the time we got you on the blower.

Anyway, I found an Irish themed machine and played that with some success for a while. Mind you, when you're playing nickel slot machines, "some success" means that I was winning .25 a game.

I found some machine called "Stinking Rich" with skunks and shit all over it. I played three or four games with a ten dollar voucher. The worst thing is that I keep pressing the button without any idea what's really going on. I just have absolutely no idea what the rules, objectives, or winning criteria are. I just push the button and sit there and gape stupidly while the screen moves to the sounds of inane casino music. Within a few minutes, I was up to around 80 dollars on that machine. Then, just as quickly, they were telling me I no longer had any money to play it.

Huh?

That was the end of my gambling for the evening.

I retired to this bar area. I figured I would have a decent glass of wine, even if I had to pay for it, and then retire to the room.

I was shocked to find that the wine would either cost me 9 dollars if I chose not to play the casino machine located right on the surface of the bar in front of me, of be complimentary if I chose to place the minimum bet (5 dollars) in the machine. I asked to make sure I was understanding correctly. I could pay 9 dollars with no possibility of winning anything, or 5 dollars with the possibility of winning millions.

Yep. That was the case. I chose to play, of course. Naturally I won nothing. But still...I figured I was ahead of the game on the wine at least. I was clearly no longer playing when the guy came and offered me another glass of wine. I reminded him that I was no longer playing, and had in fact only bet five bucks. He didn't think this was a problem, and was prepared to keep pouring just on the basis of my having placed a five dollar bet a half hour earlier. I turned down the wine and retired to the room.

This morning, the three of us had a disappointing breakfast at Panera (Lauren was surprised that I had stated my dislike of Panera, but I have yet to have a really pleasant meal there), and then retired to the casinos for a little more play. We are all painfully early risers in the morning, even on days off. The three of us had showered, packed our bags, and eaten breakfast by 7:00 AM. I decided to try to go back and earn my millions on my previously red hot Village People machine. It was stone cold. I wasted perhaps another twenty dollars on the thing before throwing in the towel.

I returned to the room at 8:00 or so. We had given each other a 10:30 meeting time, so I was able to get in some quality reading, and watched a really horrifyingly bad, but somewhat funny nonetheless movie starring Bernie Mac. That bastard was funny, god rest his acerbic soul.

In the end, I returned to Boston with the exact same sum of cash in my wallet as when I went down there. I guess the experts call this "breaking even" and they consider it to be a small victory on behalf of the player. So I'm pleased enough about that. But even for me, a self-proclaimed non-gambler, the lure was somewhat strong. I had to will myself away from the Village People machine. It was crappy this morning, and I knew it. But I kept telling myself that if I stuck another twenty into it, it might heat up again. Luckily I didn't yield to the temptation, but it was a challenge for me to walk away.

Maybe I need professional help.

Onto this next topic. You should all read this great book! Freakin' hilarious. My favorite part of the whole book is when the author tells of her friend, a middle school teacher for behaviorally disturbed boys, who gets her class in control by threatening to show her wedding video. She did it once before, much to the horror and chagrin of her boys. They started towing a very straight line in order to avoid this nightmare again. Now, all this woman has to do when her kids are acting like jackasses is gesture toward the drawer containing the video, and they immediately start profusely apologizing for the behavior.

Shit...why didn't we hire a videographer for our wedding? What were we thinking? I know we had said it was too expensive at the time, but when I think of the hours of horror I could have inflicted on poorly behaved middle schoolers, I regret my peny pinching ways.

Oh well, there's always the dreadfully boring three-hour film "The Trial of Standing Bear" that can be pulled out, dusted off, and shown for jackasses to watch if their behavior merits the torture.

I think that might be all I had to say.

Well...I'm sure I had more, but I'm hungry and my dinner is ready.

Just a Couple of My Favorite Dudes

2008-11-20T21:25:00.002-05:00

This has been one long ass week. And it ain't over yet. I had class Tuesday night, professional development until 5 on Wednesday, and tonight (Thursday) I was at school for parent conferences until 8:00. Jesus....I still have to get my arse through tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my "Girls' Group." I look forward to this group. The kids are talkative, open, warm, funny, charming, and just plain enjoyable. It is a highlight of my week. I'm glad I do it twice a week. It ensures pleasant starts to at least two mornings a week.

Anyway, today at dismissal, one of the GREAT girls in my homeroom, C, dropped the contents of her folder all over the floor. We were all helping her gather her things. I came across pictures of an adorable young man, and she confirmed that it was her much-talked-about boyfriend.

The girls were talking about bringing pictures of cute boys to school for me to see. I then declared tomorrow's girls' group "Bring A Picture of a Cute Boy to Girls' Group" day. The kids are all excited. They all asked me if I was going to bring a picture of my husband. Ha! I guaranteed them they'll be treated to a picture of my "other husband" Jon Bon Jovi. They squealed with delight, so of course I'll have to bring a picture of JBJ to the group. I will skip the picture of Bill Clinton because although I love the bastard, I don't think he's cute. I just stumbled across this photo while I was looking for the perfect JBJ photo and thought it was kind of fun. So here it is.

I am prepping to see a bunch of photos of rappers and hip hop singers that I've never heard of tomorrow. But it will be fun.

The cutest thing is that tonight, one of my favorite parents, a single dad of an awesome daughter, K, came to see me. He comes to every open house, school event, and PTA. We talked about his delightful, peppy, spunky daughter. He was preparing to leave and then his daughter turned and said, "Oh, Ms. B., C is worried that she can't print a picture for tomorrow. Her printer is broken!" I jokingly told her that C could not come to group. She caught the joke and said she'd text her friend back and tell her it wasn't a problem. Dad, who hadn't said anything about this conversation finally chimed in with, "K, you can just print a picture for her tonight at home. What's the problem?" I laughed and asked Dad, "Do you know what this picture is for? It's not for a school project." He kind of sighed and said, "I know. I know all about it. It's 'bring-a-picture-of-a-cute-boy-to-girls'-group day.'" I told him not to feel compelled to allow his daughter to deplete his precious and expensive computer ink supply for this frivolity. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I can either know that my daughter is printing pictures of Chris Brown from the centrally located printer in the living room, texting her friends and giggling about the fact that her teacher is letting them bring them to the group, or I could say no and she'd sneak off and do it somewhere else where she could get into god-knows-what trouble. The printer ink is a small price to pay for knowing my daughter is up to silly, goofy, 14 year-old antics right under my nose."

I guess he had a point, but what a cool ass dad.

Full Moon?

2008-11-13T19:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not really one to follow the lunar cycle, but maybe I should. I can't even see the moon from where I'm sitting and I don't have the energy to move the three fee that it would require me to see it. All I'm saying is that it must be a full freakin' moon. If it isn't, I'm going to find out when the full moon is going to fall and make sure I take a personal day. I want to be as far away from school as possible on any day that they might be crazier than they were today.

I'm beat. No, I'm not just beat. I'm beat down.

The kids have been ridiculous lately. The behavior today was out of control. It has honestly been astounding. I NEVER send kids to the office for discipline. Well...maybe NEVER is too broad a term. I would say that RARELY is an apt descriptor of how often I send kids to the office for discipline. Between F (whose story I recounted on yesterday's post) and the three that I sent to the office today, I've reached a total of 4 kids to the office in two days.

It's not even worth recounting the things that they did to warrant the trips to the principal. If I started getting into the details here, I'd probably undo the benefits of the hot needle acupuncture I had this afternoon. Suffice it to say that the behavior has been BAD. It's not just silly ass kid stuff either. It's really BAD. I'll leave it at that.

I felt really bad, though, because at the end of the day, two lovely girls, D and K, came by to chat. They proceeded to tell me that they've had enough of being clumped together in groups with kids who purposely do stupid and hurtful things to other people. They're tired of being included in collective punishments. (The VP kept the entire 8th grade on a group detention yesterday after school....I do try to avoid these types of unfair group punishments, but sometimes they are effective. The worst part is that the threat of a group punishment is often lorded over a mass of kids in the hopes that the jerk/s who perpetrated whatever offense might feel guilty about seeing their classmates needlessly and unjustly punished and step forward to claim responsibility for their actions. Usually, though, if the kid was jerky enough to commit the original crime, he has no guilt about watching his classmates sink unfairly. That's the cruel irony of the entire thing). They are tired of having their things stolen and tampered with. They are tired of having spit balls hurled at their lunch trays by jackasses in their 8th grade class. They are upset about the fact that I have to lock the door when the class is out of the room, thus necessitating a situation where the entire group has to go to lockers, even if they don't need to get anything from their lockers. But they are fully understanding of the fact that I've been left with no choice, and they said they would do the same in my shoes. They are tired of losing class time for the overabundance of discipline issues that crop up on a daily basis. They're tired of being bullied and then called snitches if they try to stick up for themselves. They're tired of being walked all over by jerks.

When they were going through this catharsis, I felt really badly for them. It is easy for me to identify how the shit behavior inconveniences me, but I rarely stop to think about how it drives the other kids, the nice kids, crazy, too.

Here were these kids asking if I could implement the "100 points discipline chart" (never mind the details, just know that it is extremely restrictive and punitive) because they think it might shape things up.

When I told the kids that I was surprised, because the behavior has only seemed terrible in the past few days, they could barely contain their ironic laughter. They said that the minute the teachers are out of the picture, the bullies are at it in full force. They further confided that my 8th grade teaching colleague has little control over the kids and that things in his room are grim now and only getting worse. I guess that, as his mentor, I will have to find a way to gingerly address this issue.

And let me just say that when the conversation veered in the direction of kids talking about my colleague, I steered it immediately onto more neutral territory. I think it is totally uncool for one teacher to malign or otherwise talk unflatteringly about a colleague in front of kids. Big no no there.

But man....I am in desperate need of a day off. Something. I haven't felt this harried in teaching for quite some time now. It just seems that every little thing is blowing up and coming to a head at the same time. I'm used to putting out a few little fires and one big fire on a daily basis. That's my job. But there are no little fires here. Everything is volcanic proportion and I'm fighting just to keep up with things. Getting ahead isn't even in the question.

Man......

Calgon take me away.

It Goes Beyond the Pop Tart

2008-11-12T19:11:00.003-05:00

It was a tough day at school today. My kids seem to be in a behavioral slump. I can't explain why, but they are.

Today we had "bus safety day." A bus company sent over a representative who was charged with the responsibility of meeting with students of each grade level, having them board the bus, and then discussing the basics of bus safety with them. The man who came to do the presentation loaded my 8th graders onto the bus, and then proceeded to read, in a barely audible voice, with the thickest accent I've ever heard, a series of rules. He had absolutely no voice inflection, and the poor guy butchered every single word he spoke. I was surprised and disappointed that my students, so many of whom have themselves struggled with English, were vicious in their reactions to this man. They laughed snorting, vicious, throaty laughs. It was terrible. The principal was sitting right there throughout the duration of the presentation. One student, F, was particularly obnoxious. The other teachers all have a history of having deep-seated conflict with F. But for some reason, I have been saved from having to deal with this behavior. Why? Because, according to F himself, he likes me. Simple as that. I have never been forced to deal with his infamous bad behavior. We have an understanding. And I like it that way.

The principal witnessed his atrocious behavior and pulled him aside to speak to him immediately following the presentation. She must not have lambasted him too firmly because he was back on our hallway within moments. But he was fuming. When I pulled him aside to calm him (which I usually am very successful at doing), he only grew more agitated. He accused me of having "snitched" on him to the principal. I may like to foster close relationships with the kids, but I have to draw a line when they become a little too familiar. I assured him that the principal needed zero help from me in noticing his outrageous behavior, and that I didn't appreciate the tone he had taken with me. With that, he blurted, "What the fuck do you want, Ms. B?"

The movement in the hallway (it was crazy locker time) froze as every student awaited my response. As cool as a cucumber, I answered, "I want for you to follow me right to the office. I don't need to listen to this, and you have no place in 8th grade today."

I then ushered this kid down to the principal.

Look...I get the whole hormone thing. I get that kids at this age are likely to be volatile, but I don't have to put up with being sworn at and to. The kids are always swearing at each other, or about something in general that has pissed them off. When that happens, I remind them that we're in school and we move on. But this kid swore AT me, which was absolutely not going to go down well.

Later, some kids in my homeroom noticed that there were a few packages of Pop Tarts that had been left over from a girls group that I run in the mornings. They were swarming around them, and I shooed them away. Before leaving for lunch, I noticed three wrapped packages of the things. When we returned from lunch, I was on locker duty for a moment while the kids trickled in and out of the room, back and forth between class and lockers. When I came back to the room, the kids were all acting strange. I immediately went to the freakin' pop tart bowl.

Empty.

I was pissed. I made every kid leave their backpack on the floor in my room, taking only what they needed for science class out of the room with them. It was my full intention to conduct a full backpack search following the upcoming class period, when my homeroom returned.

But fuck it.

When they returned, I mused aloud, "I didn't earn degrees at two of the country's finest and most prestigious educational institutions to have my career culminate in shaking down a bunch of backpacks for a miserably, lowly Pop Tart. If you stole it, you need it more than I do. But keep in mind that I'm not mad about a Pop Tart. I'm mad about being a theft victim. But you go ahead. You take that Pop Tart and eat it. When you're tucking into your sugary frosted sweet later today, just know that you're a lowlife and a thief."

Harsh? Probably? But fuck that. I explained that we were beyond the Pop Tart itself and that we were talking about simple, petty theft.

Damn....Christmas Vacation, are you here yet?

Waxing Nostalgic

2008-11-11T17:53:00.003-05:00

So, today is Veterans' Day. I love the fact that we have the day off, but unlike most kind of too-distant-past-to-be-truly meaningful national holidays, this one is actually relevant and poignant in the here and now. It gives me pause when I think of all the people who have served this country, and of course, of those who are currently serving. Man...it must be hard to be over there (wherever "over there" happens to be to any given soldier).

I have a friend who is over in Iraq. She is the friend/neighbor of Jim, the guy who owns "the cabin" in NH. This young woman, Jill, enlisted about a year ago and was deployed to Iraq this summer. We have sent her a few letters and cards just to keep her up-to-date on the silly happenings at home, but more to just let her know that we're thinking of her.

She is only 19. Crazy, huh? I am not a religious person, but I do pray for her safety. She personalizes this war for me. I hope she comes home safe. SOON!

In my own silly little bubble not-directly-affected-by-war world, I had a nice day off. I got up early with Stephen and we went for coffee. (I'm forever doomed to be an early morning person, I'm afraid. The life of a teacher, as it were).

I had already had coffee, taken the bus to the gym, worked out for a couple of hours, and showered by 9:30 AM. I know...nuts.

I then tooled around for a while, stopping to pick up some dinner stuff at Trader Joe's. I love that dump.

I got a great Wax job at a salon in Brookline. It's funny because Brookline is so freakin' posh, but there are all these salons where you can get an awesome eyebrow wax job for like six bucks! So, I took advantage of that and had my brows "shaped." My brows are so freakin' puny to begin with that they are never actually "shaped" but rather just "cleaned up." Whatever...it needed done!

Ok, this is a lame post and I'm just procrastinating. I have lots to correct. But to my credit...I've done a heap of work today. Grades are due soon and they're actually computerized for the first time ever. How sexy!!

Just Stuff

2008-11-08T11:32:00.002-05:00

Hi Y'all. I know my blogging has been totally sporadic. I wish I could seriously sit here and promise more frequent (or at least more regular) posts, but I won't commit to that. I'm sure it's a goal I won't be able to live up to.

I guess the best way to see if I'm blogging is to check in from time to time. Not that I am laboring under delusions of anybody sitting by their computers and holding their breath. I'm just saying.

I don't have much to say. Mostly I'm posting because the only other thing I really have pressing upon me at this point is a massive mountain (I was going to say "pile," but that would hardly do justice) of correcting to do. I've solemnly vowed to my students that I would have their work turned back to them by next Wednesday at the latest. If I want to meet that goal, I've got to devote serious time this weekend to getting that done. I was going to make a promise for Tuesday, but then I remembered that we have Veterans' Day, and so I gave myself until Wednesday. Yet another reason to be eternally grateful to our devoted and honorable Veterans.

First topic:

I wonder why I seem to invite negative comments from "Anonymous" from time to time. I could delete the comments, or password protect my blog I guess. I don't know how to do that, though, so I'll rule that option out. As far as the deleting the comments....why bother? I guess you could say that if it strikes me enough to write about it, that I'm somewhat bothered by it and should just delete them. Actually "bothered" would be a strong word. This is a silly blog. A silly PUBLIC blog, at that. Anybody out there can find it and read it, and I have the comment option activated, so I guess I'm leaving myself open to the critique. It just seems strange to me that people actually take the time to be personally insulting on what is clearly a silly, just-for-laughs blog. I could see if I were out there taking a Perez Hilton stance or if I were some official political blogger or something. But come on, people, it's just me. I have a silly arse blog about a hot dog stand and get bitched out. I post a happy, SILLY little post about Obama, and I get insulted. What's up with that?

Well, "Anonymous" I guess you've got me.

But hear me out. I'm not such a bad person. I found it amusing that somebody was selling hot dogs from the depths of a construction pit . I am happy that Obama got elected. I actually like the guy. Do these things add up to make me such a horrific, horrible, human being worthy of being reviled and insulted by you?

Some of these people leave comments that make me think they might actually be taking my pointless musings here seriously.

Actually, instead of being perplexed, maybe I should feel badly for "Anonymous." If he/she is taking my blog seriously, they must be inhabiting a very strange reality. How disconcerting.

Let's see what jerky-ass comment "Anonymous" leaves now, shall we?

Second Topic:

I feel like I have nothing to wear. It is the classic, full-closet-and-bursting-at-the-seams-closet-but-not-a-damned-thing-to-put-on syndrome. I feel like I'm wearing the same things over and over and over and over. You get the picture. My friend, Jenn, and I are going to conduct an Old Navy raid today. She's a big time Old Navy girl. I hardly ever get over there. I do have some jeans from there that I like a lot. And I've purchased a few things there from time to time. But I'm ready to take the plunge and really try to find some good stuff there. That place is pretty affordable, so I'm hoping to find some things I like. One of the problems with Old Navy can sometimes be that things are cut for girls that weigh about 800 pounds less than I do. I have also found them to be quite a strong offender on the bulging-side-pockets pants phenomenon. But I'm going to try to go in there with an open mind and get past my hang-ups. Fingers crossed.

Third Topic:

I tried acupuncture this week. I have a friend at the gym who is an acupuncturist, and she's giving me a good deal on the treatments. I am hoping I find it to be a fruitful pursuit.

Fourth Topic:

I am sick and tired of my freaking class at UMass. It really stinks. I have learned absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Do you get the point? The lectures are pointless and directionless. The syllabus keeps changing and the assignment expectations are fuzzy at best. I never quite feel like I know what I'm doing or what I'm supposed to be doing. Quite annoying, really. I get sick of it. The professor also keeps up well beyond the 2.5 hour duration of the course, and she NEVER gives us a break. Jesus...I don't mind staying late if we at least had a break in the middle of the class. I REALLY like it when profs give the breka up to get us out early. But in this class, it is the worst of all worlds. No break AND we stay late!!

Fifth Topic:

Are you all members of Netflix? I would seriously recommend it!

Sixth Topic:

I am trying desperately to put a normal weekly gym schedule back together. Step aerobics classes, the mainstay of my workout regime, are slowly but surely coming off the schedule, only to be replaced with tons of spinning and yoga classes. Let me tell you how much I HATE Yoga. I can't stand that crap. And I'm crap at it. I am about as agile as a cement block. Maybe even less so. Give me a step bench to pound around on and I'm happy. I know the whole point of yoga is to keep practicing and getting better, but I can't be bothered to screw around with that garbage. I can't stand the whole yoga culture.
I hate spinning less passionately than I used to, but make no mistake...I still hate it. I should be more openminded, but honestly, unless I'm sweating my butt off in a step class, or doing some weight lifting work, I don't really have a great time working out. And then there's the treadmill. If I really can't deal with any of the classes on offer on a particular day, I hope on the treadmill for an hour. I try everything to make the time pass...TV, iPod, magazine...whatever. But none of it works. The time just drags by.

Seventh Topic:

Work has been hard.

Eighth Topic:

I'm desperate for a good book to read. I just finished Anthony Bourdain's first book, and I'm plowing quickly through his second opus, but I'm already looking forward to a couple of days from now when I won't have anything at the ready to read. Any good recommendations? I suppose I could read my course stuff for UMass, but why bother? I spent the 130 dollars on the course books and have not cracked them once. Why start now?

Ninth Topic:

Totally random, but I'll throw it out there...(I have 8 topics, so I might as well go for ten, right?)
If you're a salmon lover, try this super simple, but sublime recipe that I pirated from cooking light. It's so easy it's hardly a recipe, but whatever. Semantics.
Zest an orange, squeeze the orange's own juice on the zest, pour some soy sauce into the mixture. Marinate the salmon in that for 30 minutes and then cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or to whatever level of doneness you like for your Salmon. Freaking delicious.

Tenth Topic.

This business of it being full on pitch black night at 4:30 in the afternoon is truly depressing.

Peace out...

2008-11-05T06:18:00.002-05:00

O Yeah!
O Baby!

Obama!

Rock the Vote, Baby!

2008-11-03T20:44:00.002-05:00

Man...at long last. Election day is tomorrow. It seems that campaign "season" has been interminable, but at the same time, it's now hard to believe that tomorrow, we'll know who our next President is going to be.

I'm voting for Obama, but please note that I didn't put some crazy, ugly, unflattering photo of your boy (if he's your boy) McCain. Hey, he might not be my guy, but I respect the fact that he might be your guy.

I wish I could truly believe that every vote counts. But in this electoral collect joke system, that's just not true. We need to overhaul that noise.

In the meantime, I hope everybody gets their arse out to vote. It's important stuff, kids.

Attack of the Adult Tattle Tale

2008-10-29T19:09:00.002-04:00

I have some great students. They are really lovely, hardworking, wouldn't-say-boo-to-a-fly types of kids. Today, during our homeroom "silent reading" period (think of "study hall" from your high school years), I had some kids finishing up a group project, while other kids were trying to work on their silent reading response journals. I tried to separate the kids (talkers and readers) by placing them on separate sides of the room. Eventually, however, the volume of conversation swelled to a point that it was difficult for the readers to concentrate.

One of my nicest kids, D, asked me if she could place a chair outside the classroom door to read.

I was, right then and there, struck with a great idea. Our school is brand spanking new and it is beautiful. There are massive, airy areas that are drenched in natural sunlight for most of the day. There are quint little window seats that afford the kids a view of the vast field below, and comfortable but practical benches built into walls across from the library. The real piece de resistance is a huge, high-ceilinged, floor-to-ceiling windowed atrium on the third floor of the building. There are two sofas and a rocking chair stationed in this thing and NOBODY ever uses them. The atrium is located catty-corner (is that right?) to my classroom, so my window looks square into the thing. The couches and rocking chair are placed square in front of the atrium window, which means that, to all intents and purposes, they are basically an extension of my classroom furniture. I can see (and hear if the windows are all open) every single thing that goes on in the atrium.

So...the grand idea was that I would allow these four studious, responsible, hardworking young ladies the opportunity to take advantage of some of this beautiful space in this marvel of architecture we call a school. I assigned D to the little window seat ten feet away from my classroom door, K to the bench opposite the library (in plain view of the librarian's circulation desk), C to the sofa in the atrium, and L to the rocking chair in the atrium. These girls were delighted with the opportunity to spread their little wings a bit and to experience a little bit of independence.

I could see L and C the entire time through my windows, and I knew that D and K wouldn't even think of moving from their spots until I sent somebody to go and get them to return to class.

The kids were so pleased, and I was really happy with how well they did. I checked the amount of work they had done before they'd left the room, and the amount of work they had when they returned to the room. I was more than convinced that they would have done the exact same amount of work had they been sitting right under my nose. Not all kids are like this, but these few are.

I was chatting with the principal later and I even mentioned to her that I was really glad to have given the students a chance to really appreciate the true beauty of the building, and to enjoy the functionality of some of the neater sitting areas. She was really glad to hear the news and (as a former 8th grade teacher herself), commented upon the much-needed independence that many kids this age need to feel. She totally gets it.

Fast Forward to five minutes after dismissal. I'm sitting in my classroom when the phone rings. The caller is identified as "DR" my principal. I thought nothing of it. I picked up ready for a pleasant chat, but was greeted, instead, with tales of an email that she had received from LM (another teacher) complaining about my kids. The principal said LM claimed the kids were (and I quote directly), "rolling around on floors, lying down, disrupting people, purposely trying to trip her as she walked by, and generally causing problems."

My stomach sank. WTF? I had watched L and C through the window, and they were the only two working anywhere near each other. D and K were totally isolated from any other kids. I was gobsmacked, and totally embarrassed. Recall, if you will, the fact that just moments earlier I had been telling my principal how beautifully my little arrangement had worked.

I expressed my discontent with the fact that this woman didn't speak to me directly, but rather involved the principal immediately.

The principal readily agreed and told me that she was relaying the information so that I could speak to my colleague directly and put this issue to rest.

So, that's exactly what I did. I found my colleague and asked her what she had seen. "Well," she said, "There were kids everywhere and I didn't know if they were supposed to be all over the place like that."

I asked her what she meant by "all over the place." Did she mean that they were simply in different locations, or that they were literally rolling and running around.

She said that "all over the place" was her reference to the number of locations in which ALL FOUR of the kids were sitting.

I asked her then to recount for me exactly what she had seen the kids doing.

"Well," she said, "one of them was sitting on the floor and had her legs extended out in front of her. When I walked by I almost tripped over her because I only saw her at the last minute."

Ok, granted, the kid should have been on the bench and not the floor, but still...

So, I asked if she had thrust her legs forward when the teacher had approached. "No." Then I asked if she was otherwise misbehaving or what the rest of her body posture was. "Oh, she was sitting up straight with her back against the wall."

Ok.

Then I asked what else she was doing while she was sitting there.

"She was reading her book and writing in her notebook."

Ok. What about the other kids. What were they doing?

"Well, they were sitting there reading."

Hmmm...now I should ask if they were talking and carrying on.

"No, they were reading."

So, were they running, loafing, lounging, or otherwise doing anything with their bodies other than sitting there?

"No. They were just sitting there."

When she heard herself basically admitting that the kids were doing NOTHING wrong, she back pedaled and said, "Well....I just didn't know if they should be there. I mean, they were in the HALL!!! I didn't know if that was OK."

I then asked her if she asked the students what they were doing.

"No."

I asked her if she knew whose class they were in? Did she know they were my kids?

"Yes."

And yet, I reminded her, she never bothered to come speak to me directly about this. But rather she went directly to the principal.

"Yes. Well I didn't know."

I then reminded her (with a hurt and scorned look) that I thought we were friends and that we had always enjoyed a pleasant, collegial relationship.

"No. Yes. No...we are. We are friends. Yes. We are."

I asked her if I had ever proven to be impenetrable in terms of discussing work-related matters or if I had ever been off-putting about discussing work with her.

"No...of course not!"

Then I asked her why, then, had she gone to the principal over my head rather than come to me in a spirit of collegiality to discuss an issue of concern.

She kind of stammered and did a lot of staring at her feet.

I also reminded her that these young ladies were sitting in highly conspicuous locations around the school with novels, notebooks and pencils, freely writing and flipping through their books. They weren't lurking, hiding, or cowering in dark corners. They were there, out in the open, for all to see. Why the F would anybody think they were there on anything other than a teacher's authority????

Jesus.

I told her, "Look. I get it. I get that in this school we have somehow embraced a culture of tattling to the principal rather than approach our colleagues in a friendly spirit of professional discourse. But I assured her that although I fully get it, I just can't embrace it.

I reminded her that I have to watch her homeroom dismiss themselves every day in a wild frenzy (because she doesn't walk them to the door so by the time they charge past my classroom to the stairs, they are in a fever pitch) and yet I've never opend my mouth to the principal. Why? Because I'm not 3. And I just don't want to have to get my principal involved in stupid crap that she shouldn't have to tend to. Hello...the woman has a school to run.

Whatever.

The woman was all apologies, and I backed off. But still. One more person at work to trust as far as I can fling.

I don't get it. Maybe working around kids keeps the tattle tale alive in all teachers.

Inspired by Julie's Blog Post

2008-10-28T20:13:00.002-04:00

I was just cruising through my girls' blogs. It has been a while since I even treated on blog territory. Facebook has torn me away from my blog. As much as I appreciated the seemingly instant gratification of communicating one message to multiple readers at once (as is the case in blogland), nothing can surpass Facebook in terms of ease of instant correspondence.

Oh well....

I think I got intimidated by the long ass entry I would have to write after my return from France. I kept putting it off. Then, every time I thought about blogging, I knew it would require a huge time commitment.

Suffice it to say that I had a great time in France. Let's move on.

I'm going to forgive myself the failure to recount that trip in exquisite detail and just continue with regular daily banter.

Anyway, back to Julie's post. She encouraged her blog readers to grab the nearest book and copy the 5th line from page 56.

I am currently reading "Kitchen Confidential" (and yes, I know I'm supposed to set a book title in italics or underline, but I don't know how to do that on Blogger) by Anthony Bourdain. It is a great read.

So, line 5 as it appears on page 56 is as follows:

Line Cooking-the real business of preparing the food you eat-- is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way."

Julie then encourages her readers to convey the next two or three lines. Here they are:

The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going ot mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

I kind of enjoy reading about this profession. I have no experience with it. My culinary expertise consists of chopping veggies and tossing a frozen pizza into the oven.

Anthony Bourdain has a show called "No Reservations." You should check it out (and his book if you can). He is very articulate, very cheeky, and very entertaining.

Thanks, Jules, for getting me to break my blog ice after all this time. Go ahead..raise the topic of books and try to keep me quiet!!

2008-09-22T06:18:00.001-04:00

Dusty Snausage

2008-08-04T16:02:00.002-04:00

I took a brief foray to Downtown Crossing in Boston today, for no other reason than I had some time to kill before meeting my cousin, Jules, for lunch.

I was amused by the sight of a sausage vender who had set up his cart right on a corner where there is an absolutely massive construction project happening. There was debris of all shapes and sizes raining down on this guy's sausage stand, and he was carrying on as if nothing was happening. The crazy thing is that he had plenty of customers there, which only served to reaffirm his choice to set up shop right there, smack in the middle of a massive dig-up.

The other little thing I wanted to write about was the scene that unfolded in front of the DSW store.

I was on my way in, and about to reach for the door, when this young couple cut right in front of me. "Even better" I thought, "Let them open the door for me."

The woman reached for the door, and in fact had her hand on the handle to open it. As she was about to execute the opening of the door, another friend called out to her, and the couple proceeded to have a raucous conversation in Spanish (and for quite some time) all the while exhibiting no intention to leave the doorway so as to facilitate my entry. And it isn't as if they had seen me. We had already acknowledged each other with polite nods. But once they stated their conversation, they just chose to ignore me, while clogging up the door.

Finally, I sort of barked, "Excuse me" and barreled through the door. I could feel their angry eyes boring a hole in my back as I walked by them, but I didn't care.

Bad TV

2008-08-02T17:47:00.002-04:00

In my last post, I talked about our new cable subscription. More importantly, I addressed my emerging obsession with some really bad shows. It's rather frightening how this can happen so quickly.

When bad TV happens to good people!

Anyway, I'm getting reacquainted with LIfetime here (having managed to pry myself away from Bravo in order to reestablish my connection with the esteemed "television for women" channel). Sure I've flipped through the channels and briefly lingered at Lifetime prior to today, but old episode of "The Golden Girls" and "Designing Women" just haven't been enough to entice me to stop and take note. Today, however, all that changed. The combination of the driving rain outside and the "Fallen Angels" marathon on Lifetime is enough to have me hooked.

Yeah, that's right. I said the "Fallen Angels" marathon! I probably don't have to spell out the leitmotiv of the films, but I will anyway because it is too delicious not to. The movies all spin the yarns of highly successful young women who ha effed up royally in one way or the other. The last movie they played depicted the not-so-original saga of the straight-A-student who gets preggers with her boyfriend's kid, much to her mother's chagrin.

Yawn.

The movie on now, however, is pretty decent. A young woman gets into Harvard, but before taking off for the ivy-lined, hallowed halls of the venerable institution, she marries her high school sweetheart, who, at the time of the wedding, is awaiting his final decision on his own Harvard application. Needless to say, he does not get in, and is stuck working construction jobs while his wife hob-nobs with her new Harvard friends. Enter cute guitar-playing classmate, and impending marital disaster.

I'll let you know what happens.

I'm sure that at some point that Brian Austin Greene movie about "Too Young to Be a Father" will come on. Or maybe that focuses too much on the boy, not the "fallen angel." I guess that movie will have to be fitted into another marathon..."Boys To Men Too Quickly" or some crap. I'm sure Lifetime will name is something a lot less awkward, and with a much more dramatic flare. I'm just not Lifetime marathon-naming caliber, I guess.

At 7 there's something on called "Odd Girl Out." I didn't even read the description of that one, but GEE, I wonder what on earth is could be about. And then at 9 they're premiering something called, "Cheerleaders Gone Wild." Sounds a bit pornographic, if you ask me.

Anyway, moving on....

In a posting about really cheesy TV, I would be remiss if I did not mention the crap on Bravo. I know I talked about it yesterday, but after having been forced to dwell on the reading matter for these horrible courses for an entire month, I consider it a welcome chance for my mind to be completely trapped focusing on these shows. I like a little brain-deadness.

Did I mention "Flipping Out" in my last post? In the even that I didn't, let me talk about it again. Here's a picture of that asshole, Jeff Lewis. Just so you can put a face with the name as I rant....

Man, this guy is a jerk. He is such an arrogant, egotistical, self-centered, world-ends-at-the-tip-of-my nose Bitch! I have never heard him speak to anybody with anything other than apparent contempt. My god, how any of those people keep working for him is well beyond me. I suppose it is safe to assume they remain in his employ for the television exposure. Although they needn't bother. They're all such talentless ass clowns that the likelihood that they'll be picked up by some other show is nil to none!

I am oddly compelled to watch the show, as I said before. I don't know why, but when he's on, I just want to invest so much energy in hating his ass that I just can't swap the channel! Isn't that sick?

Can I just say one more thing about Lewis before I move on?

Calm down with the lip Botox, Jeff! Jesus.

On second thought, a few more injections, and his lips will be so massive that he won't be able to talk. Might not be such a bad idea!

Shear Genius is another show that I am really enjoying...

Jaclyn Smith is the host and she looks great for 9,000 years old. Actually, if I looked half as good as her at 34, I'd look freakishly amazing!

Good show. Different from most reality shows because the people have to actually possess and demonstrate some talent in order to win. Usually these reality shows consist of people laying around on sofas, covered in blankets, whispering in the dreaded "fake raspy" voice about whom to enter into allegiances with and whom to vote against. At least with "Genius" people have to DO something.

It was interesting to watch it with Lauren today, because she could give little annotations about what "I'm going to bring her hair to a 9B instead of a 6E" really means. It was like having my own talking caption!

I'll have to go over there and watch it with her again.

Oh, wait...she actually has a life.

Back Among the Living

2008-08-01T16:36:00.004-04:00

Do you remember how I once complained about not getting the summer school job? Well, in retrospect, I realize that this was the biggest blessing in disguise ever!

I had harbored these romantic images of me teaching every day until 1:00, then going over to Umass from 5-9. I thought, "This might be a slight pain in the arse, but I can handle it."

That was before I encountered EH, my "Designing Middle and Secondary School Curriculum" professor. Eunny pronounced, Oonie), as she liked to be called, was hell on wheels. This course only lasted one month. In that time, I wrote:

a pre and post assessment of my understanding of curriculum (1.5 pages each)
a 5 page "philosophy of education" at the beginning of the course
a 33 page critique of an existing ELA curriculum in Epsom, NH
a 19 page suggested modification of the curriculum
a 42 page document with three lesson plans**
a 5 page reflective paper on a presentation I gave to the class.
a post-course "updated" philosophy of education, this one totaling 13 pages. ***

**: I was required to cite literature and write a lengthy introduction to my lesson plan. NO teacher EVER writes formal lesson plans after five minutes in the business. They certainly don't write lesson plans with citations and freaking literature citations. Jesus!

***: She "corrected" my original philosophy of education, and told me to rewrite it, citing the literature we had read in class. Ahh...the literature was SHITE, and I had to basically scrap my enduring philosophy of education and write one in which I proclaim to model myself after the phony baloney "experts" we read in the course. NO teacher has a 13 page philosophy of education. Well, except for me.

The woman was psychotic and incredibly hypocritical. Keep the following three examples in mind:

1. She would regularly talk about the evils and ineffectiveness of lecturing the kids. She would tell us we would lose them, that they have an average attention span of 7 minutes, that kids will just disengage. Then, as these warnings were still hot and wet off her lips, she would launch in to lectures that would last for an hour or more! Fucking horrid.

2. When one of the women in our group didn't do her part of the project, she told us all she was refusing to accept the work. When I went to see her to appeal to her "logic" to evaluate the rest of us on the portion of the work we had done individually, she kept insisting that it was our problem as the work was meant to be collaborative. When I set up and appointment to meet her privately, she got angry, slammed the chair back under the table, buried her face in her laptop and barked, "Nancy, if you were having this conversation with your student, what would it look like?" After a brief pause, I told her, "It would not look like this, I can guarantee you that!" Then I called her a hypocrite for telling us to respect our students, and then treating me like this behind closed doors. She showed up to class ten minutes later, acting as if nothing had happened. I gave her the silent treatment for two days, and she asked my classmate, Mary, "What's wrong with Nancy?" Ahhhhh.....????

3. See the abovementioned list of work!! Add to that the average of 150 pages of reading per night.

Anyway, I'm freakin' done! My second class was pretty painless, but I'm glad to have it over, too. It seems strange not to have a major dissertation to write.

Ok, enough about that.

Every summer Stephen wants to watch the Tour de France, so we upgrade our cable. Usually I can take it or leave it, but this time around, I'm inexplicably addicted to BRAVO!!

Come on....what's not to love?

Project Runway....You're out, "Auf wiedersehen!"

Shear Genius. Awesome. Annoyingly obnoxious and egotistical people. An impossibly young looking Jaclyn Smith (she has to contain lots of plastic at this point), the over-the-top dramatics.

That Real Estate show with the absolute most arrogant asshole I've ever seen in my life (you know, the guy with the huge lips and the worst case of cheerleader cadence-itis I ever did hear.) He is so horrible and yet I'm oddly compelled to watch.

Now there's the Real Housewives show coming up, and the real estate show with the 12 year-old brokers, one of whom has that horrible combed-entirely-forward hairdo. Very dodgy.

I read something about Bridezillas on Reesie's blog. Is that on Bravo, too? Does anybody know anything about this? Praytell.

And finally, my computer is back. Lauren took me over to pick her up, for which I'm extremely grateful.

The silence of my computer is deafening. Whereas pre-repair it sounded like a jetway, it now sound blissfully like nothing. I'm trying to be optimistic, but we've been here before. A new logicboard and power supply, followed by a few days of silence. Then right back to grinding fans and all the other good stuff. But hey...as long as I'm still under warranty, I'll just keep bringing it in for repairs.

And hey....

7 days and counting until France!!

An Evening With Old Friends

2008-07-10T20:43:00.002-04:00

I can't think of any other way to sum up an evening spent with Bon Jovi. I'm not delusional. I don't have imaginary friendships with the members of Bon Jovi. I don't labor under the delusion that any of these fabulous men are aware of my existence on the planet.

However, every time I go to a Bon Jovi show, from the moment they take the stage, I feel like I'm getting together with old friends. I guess that's what happens when a girl first sees a band when she's 12 years old, and she's still just as stoked about seeing them when she's pushing the ripe old age of 35.

The real treat of the evening came when we got to get up close and personal with the Jovi. He appeared on a side stage in the crowd, not far from where Lauren and I were sitting. We just kind of looked at each other, taking our great height into consideration, and then looked at the other four foot garden gnomes in the audience and we knew what had to be done.

We just plowed over people. I'm not sure if we left anybody injured in our wake, but Christ...this is JOVI! What were we supposed to do? Ace like ethical human beings or something? No...our only choice was to turn the other people in the crowd into human bowling pins and knock them the hell over.

Listen, in the presence of greatness, people tend to abandon all sense of reason and decency. The saddest part is that I don't even feel bad. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Just keep that in mind if you see me at a Bon Jovi show. I'm bigger than you. I'm not afraid to use my size to my advantage. If you're in my way, I'll have to crush your ass to get even a milimeter closer to JBJ.

I got some GREAT pictures. Lauren is using my sexy Canon camera at the show tonight (Yeah, she's going again), so I'll have to post my photos tomorrow. For tonight you'll have to make due with this Kenneth Cole advertisement.

Listen to me...."You'll have to make due."

Jesus...I know you all just canceled your dates for Tomorrow night so you can sit home and stare at this God all night long.

Go ahead...try to deny it.

The music was great. The relics of the 80's that comprised the audience did not disappoint, either. Acid washed jeans abounded. Deep fried piggyback perms were abundant. There was no shortage of poorly executed mullets and two-cent floozies. I mean, come on people. I know the eighties are sort of making a bit of a comeback. But these slobs are wearing the outfits from the first time around, blissfully unaware that there was a twenty five year gap in which that leather vest with no shirt underneath was not acceptable. Well, that particular fashion trend never was, isn't, and never will be acceptable. But you know what I'm getting at here.

Anyway, I must point out how gracious Bon Jovi are. They pull all the old warhorses (Livin' on a Prayer, You Give Love a Bad Name, Runaway) with a huge grin on their faces and an unparalleled (spelling?) enthusiasm. They always seem humbled by the fact that the audience acutally knows every word to every single song, and they seem to genuinely enjoy the fact that they've had this connection with their fans.

Take, for instance, "Livin on a Prayer." They played the first couple of cords of the song, and then the audience just took over from there, without Jovi even chiming in. The jumbotron overhead projected an image of a beaming JBJ during the crowd performance. Upon its conclusion, he said, "See....this is why I keep coming back to Boston!"

You know he's had to sing that song nine million times in his life, but there is he, happy as a clam to do it for the nine million and first time for us. The band seems to enjoy the music as much as the crowd down.

Very refreshing.

I tell you, there is nothing like a Bon Jovi concert. If you have't been to one yet, you haven't lived.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Rumor Mill

2008-06-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

Today during a professional development meeting my cell phone rang.

Normally I would not even dream of answering my phone at such an inopportune time. However, seeing as where my superintendent had just seen fit to blast me in front of all my colleagues, I wasn't feeling terribly professional.

So...I picked up the phone. It was my friend, Maura. She is also a teacher in the district. She was at another professional development meeting with another teacher from my school.

As soon as I picked up the phone, Maura was gushing her heartfelt congratulations. I was flummoxed. I asked her what on earth she was congratulating me on. "Linda M. just told me you're pregnant," she cooed.

Ahhhh.....????

No.

I'm not pregnant. But if people are thinking I am, I had best get my ass to Jenny Craig on the double.

Strange.

Talk about being the last to know.

Graduation

2008-06-20T05:45:00.003-04:00

Today is my last day of school. Usually I'm totally psyched for this day to happen. Today, however, I approach the day with a little more sobriety than I normally would. (And no, I don't mean sobriety as in the opposite of bombed, but rather in the opposite sense than gleeful. Just wanted to clear that up.)

This is my first year with an 8th grade homeroom. I always taught 8th grade, but previously I had 7th grade homerooms. And sure I was sad to see the 8th graders leave, but there was, I guess, a little sense of removal from all that emotion. Last year, when my 8th grade teaching colleagues retired, I asked the principal if I could take a grade 8 homeroom.

It has been a fantastic year. My homeroom rocked. The kids were funny, considerate, personable and just straight up good. Sure, they were goofs sometimes. Of course I had to tell them off for being jackasses every once in a while. But we "got" each other. I knew they were awesome kids, even if they were having a not-so-awesome-kids day, and they knew I loved them, even if I had to play the heavy or remove some privilege temporarily or something. We all knew our roles, and for the most part, we played them.

Me and my homeroom. It was a match made in heaven.

I have threatened, more than a few times this year, to report all their final averages for their classes as failing. This would ensure that they would have to stay behind in 8th grade and I could keep them for another year. They would chuckle and promise that if I passed them, they'd come back to visit.

I guess I'll have to live with that.

But in all seriousness, these kids have been attending this school since kindergarten. It is high time that they moved on. They are so ready to be done with elementary school. (There are good and bad things to be said about k-8 schools. It keeps them every so slightly younger for an every so slightly longer period of time. That's obviously a good thing. But they really start to feel cramped after a while. Obviously that's a bad thing.)

So, I have to let them go. I will be there today, amidst the 8th grade girl tears, comforting and consoling and telling them that they will be great at the high school and that after two days there, they'll never look back or long for their elementary school days. I'll say all this cheerfully, knowing that it's true. But inwardly, I will be heavyhearted. This is the BEST homeroom a teacher could ever have had. I LOVED these kids.

But as I said...it is their time. Keeping them would be unfair.

And now I'm off. I have an extremely early start to my last day because one of my students called me yesterday after she found out that some of the kids' pictures were missing from the CD yearbook they did. It turns out that the guy who did the CD burning for us (while we were on our field trip) burned the wrong file. It was one of the drafts and not the final project. In my mind, I was thinking, "What's the big deal?" But then I realized that of course it is a VERY big deal for the poor kids whose pictures don't appear in their own 8th grade yearbook. So, I trudged down to Target, picked up a pack of CDs, made plans to meet Tina at school at 7, and start the final burn!

This was after staying at school until 5:00 conducting interviews for a new 8th grade teacher.

Who said the end of the year was easy?

Well....I'm off. Tina and yearbook duty call.

Xtreme Frisbee

2008-06-18T19:46:00.002-04:00

Today we had our field trip to Canobie Lake amusement park in New Hampshire.

The kids were great. The weather was a dream. The colleague who went with me is a lot of fun. The day was perfect. It had been threatening to lightening and downpour, but none of that nightmare weather ever materialized.

As soon as we entered the park, the kids scrammed and ran to all four corners of the park in pursuit of their favorite rides.

My colleague and I walked around and enjoyed being outdoors. We occasionally ran into some of our students, chatted about what rides they'd been on, and then pleasantly parted ways.

After lunch (we waited 45 minutes in line for disgusting fatty chicken fingers and fries), we ran into Anna-Julia, Melissa, Brandon and Sergio. Actually, Melissa and Brandon were sitting there, having an iced tea, and waiting for Anna-Julia and Sergio, who had retired momentarily to their respective restrooms. I expressed my disappointment at the fact that my colleague refused to ride the "XTreme Frisbee ride with me." At this, Melissa and Brandon perked up and informed me that Anna-Julia was desperate for somebody to ride the thing with. Neither of them felt like braving the ride.

So, when Anna-Julia came back, we immediately reparied to the corner of the park where the XTreme Frisbee ride is housed.

Thinking it hilarious that their teacher was perparing to go on this most horrifying ride, Brandon and Melissa took thier phones out and summoned all their classmates to the ride to witness what they thought might be my extreme diziness and disorientation.

When we arrived at the ride, a good 3/4 of the kids were there, waiting to join us in our venture onto the XTreme Frisbee ride.

We waited in line together, me and all of my 8th graders, much to the amusement of all the other hundreds of kids in line. "Hey, look at those kids going on the ride with the teacher!"

At last, our turn to ride arrived.

This ride consists of a huge disc with seats all around the perameters. The disc begins to hoist itself back and forth, all the while spinning around like crazy.

With each passage to and fro, the disc gains more momentum, gains more height, and spins more violently out of control.

Just when I had convinced myself that the ride had reached its climax, I realized that the speed had intensified and that we were going so high that we were practically spinning completely over. It was outrageous. I am a fan of horrifying amusements, but this thing was over the top even for me. I was willing the thing to be over!

After what seemed like hours of spinning and hurtling through space at breakneck speeds, the thing finally started to slow and descend.

After that, I had gained some official streed cred and was dragged to every spinning ride in the park by my students.

But I can't complain. I had a great time.

This is what being an 8th grade teacher is about.

Adventure Tomorrow

2008-06-17T18:57:00.002-04:00

Another advantage of having an 8th grade homeroom is that I get to go on the field trip to Canobie Lake Park. As a 7th grade homeroom teacher, I've had to sit back in years past and watch while the 8th graders went off for this exciting day. This year, I'll get to be a part of it.

And yes, I have every last intention of going on rides, either with the kids or by myself if necessary!

Ha ha.

A Memo To The General Public

2008-06-16T19:33:00.003-04:00

To: General Public

From: Nants

Re: Personal Hygiene Crisis

It is nearly summer. Temperatures are on the rise. It is crucial that all of us make it a habit to take regular showers. Unless you are living in a secluded cabin in the middle of the deepest depths of the woods and have no intentions of ever seeing another living soul, you MUST shower daily. If you are taking public transportation, you absolutely MUST shower. You must also use deodorant and wear clean clothes. Brush your teeth for good measure while you're at it.

This is no laughing matter, people. This is extremely serious business.

Refusing to shower is not cute. It's not quaint. It's not "environmentally responsible." Think of other ways to save the planet if you must; bike instead of driving, recycle, use a reusable water bottle...whatever. Just please, please do not forgo the daily sower.

I beg of you.

Shocker

2008-06-14T02:21:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while, logging onto MSN.com can be a bit shocking. You navigate to the web page and see some shocking headline and you have to take a minute to re-read it to make sure that you've read it correctly.

Such was the case when I found out about that psychopath that kept his daughter locked in a basement in Austria for 24 years? Twenty-four years? I had to read that headline a few times to make sure that's really what it said.

Today, I visited the website, and was greeted with news of Tim Russert's death. I honestly read the thing a few times before I really grasped the reality of Russert's passing.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't know Tim Russert personally or anything. Sometimes, though, a famous person's death strikes me as if I have experienced some sense of loss. I guess because Russert was so prolific in his appearances in this heated election season. (Can I really call it a "season'? Eon might be a more appropriate word.) It seemed like the guy was being featured on every single news-related broadcast on every media outlet.

And he seemed like a pretty nice guy. You know, an average Joe kind of person.

I think the irony in the whole thing is that Russert, who was known for his low-tech-ism, is now being instantaneously memorialized on the internet and on impossibly quickly compiled life retrospectives that could only have been done with the help of computers.

Already this evening, NBC resurrected Tom Brokaw (who I also really like and haven't been a devotee of any nightly network news since he retired) to host and hourlong special "a look back on Tim Russert's life."

Anyway, I kind of liked Russert, and I liked "Meet the Press" when I was around to watch it. The morning talk shows are going to have to find somebody else to come in and break down politics for the average person.

Oh well....RIP Russert.

Snapshot of the day....

2008-06-12T15:54:00.002-04:00

I kind of like blogging like I did yesterday. It is kind of "cheating" because I didn't really compose proper paragraphs, but still...I got my points across.

I think I'll do a little more of that today...

1. I found out that the principal never bothered to discipline a 7th grader who had been dead rude to a first grade teacher Friday afternoon. I encouraged that teacher to remind the principal of the incident again today. Thankfully the principal did finally look into the matter. The worst part of the whole thing is that the teacher felt threatened and told the principal as much. It's pretty weak that the principal just got around to addressing the issue today.

2. We're not sure we're keeping the tempurpedic. I'm just not sure I'm in love with it. Stephen isn't either. I think we should be ready to divorce each other for this mattress at that price.

3. I am typing on Lauren's computer as her kids play Play-Do. (Sorry, Lauren.) They are busily fulfilling my request of frying me up a Play-Do leg of lamb in the playhouse skillet. They're pretty happily setting about this task.

4. I finally finished correcting my pile, nay MOUNTAIN, of my students' young author books. Believe me, I think it is more work for the teacher to correct these things than it is for the kids to do them.

5. I am going to be in for a very late night at school tomorrow. The yearbook staff are determined to stick around until the thing is done. Not that they have much choice, mind you. I would do it, myself, but I honestly have no idea how to use the foolish program they're using. So, I'm going to go to school tomorrrow armed with money for pizza and soda, and patience to stick around until the thing is finished.

6. Gene is meeting me for Mexican tomorrow after I finish the yearbook. I think I'll need a margerita by then.

7. I'm outta here to play with my nieces. I haven't been this neglectful of them. I just type fast!!!

Checking in

2008-06-11T19:40:00.002-04:00

Not much to say.

5.5 days of school left (if I'm calculating correctly)

Still sweltering hot in my apartment.

Shoulder feeling a bit "off' following one of my "FIRM" workouts.

Listening to some strange music at the moment.

Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of grading I still have to do before closing out the school year.

Dreading the "end of year" paperwork that accompanies the end of every school year.

Looking forward to watching our remaining two episodes of "Lost."

Looking out the window at a lovely, evening sunny scene

Incredulous at the fact that the day of our amusement park field trip is threatening rain...even as all the surrounding days look to be perfect.

Hungry.

Cooking frozen pizza...real heatlhy

Wearing white wife-beater and jean shorts. Classy, right?

The Sweetest Thing

2008-06-09T22:01:00.002-04:00

It is hot in our apartment. I mean...sweltering. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm just stating the facts. You know by now that I really live for this weather.

But still.....we needed a bit of reprieve.

Stephen was in the bedroom, relaxing beneath the ceiling fan, which is the extent of our heat-relief equipment. I was sitting in the living room, profusely sweating under the effort of sitting there.

All of a sudden an idea hit me...

There is an ice cream shop about ten minutes (on foot) from our condo. I thought, "Wouldn't it be a great idea to go get a cool, refreshing snack?"

So, I bounced the idea off Stephen, who readily agreed to go with me.

We both threw on something that just about qualified as presentable and set off for the ice cream shop.

As we were walking up the street, enjoying the warm weather and rehashing our respective days at work, I thought to myself (and I know this is really corny), "this is what being hitched is all about." I have a built in ice cream shop date, or just somebody who'll throw on a pair of shoes and walk around the block with me.

That's ok by me.

Dont worry....This post contains no spoilers! Promise.

2008-06-08T20:20:00.003-04:00

Lauren and I went to check out the Sex and the City movie today. If you are still dying to see the movie, I promise you can still read on without learning of any of the movie's plot twists and turns. I wouldn't do that to you.

I will say that I think the movie is well worth its admission price. The actresses look great, the dialogue is as witty and snappy as ever, and the story line will keep you very much engaged.

The funny, silly scenes are typical Sex and the City fodder. Nothing surprising there. The more dramatic scenes are extremely well acted. I felt as emotionally invested in these characters as ever.

The filming was often done in such a way as to have the four ladies sitting around an "open-ended" table, sharing a laugh, and really pulling the viewer in as the fifth friend in the crew.

The film lasts for around 2.5 hours. The Boston Globe dubbed it "Lord of the Rings For Girls." I couldn't agree more.

If you were a fan of the show, go check out the movie. It is well worth the time and money spent.

Ok, but here's the deal...

Lauren and I, being the punctual creatures that we are, arrived at the cinema around 20 minutes prior to the beginning of the previews, even. We were all perched in prime movie theatre real estate (aisle seats on a row at the back of the rather small theatre) ready to view our "old friends" from a comfortable vantage point.

I took a trip to the restroom (quelle surprise) prior to the start of the previews. When I returned, Lauren announced that we would have to leave our seats and find other seating. I was a big nervous at this point. You see, the theatre was about three quarters full, with only the front row seats available. She said the woman who had come to our row during my trip to the can had on some really noxious perfume.

Lauren is a lot more sensitive to smell than I am, so I told her we could switch seats. She could sit on the aisle and I would sit next to the perfume lady. So, we executed the seat switch. Lauren had barely settled into her aisle seat, and I still had yet to plant my ass in her newly vacated seat when the odor of this woman's perfume hit me full on. I had no self-censoring in place when I proclaimed, "This is really BAD! We need to get out of here."

If I had thought about it, I would not have been so obnoxious because the woman understood that we were leaving because of her. But seriously, if she was going to be "in my face" with her perfume, I could be in her face with my comments.

So, we were forced to move to practically the front of the theatre. We had been planted in the middle of the theatre, but now we were relegated to the side. So, we had to sit there with our necks craned sideways and upwards. I'm still sore, but I think the evasion of the perfume (and I know I'm going to spell this next word wrong, but I'm not even going to try to correct it) asphyxiation was well worth a little neck kink. I'll let you know when I evaluate the mobility range of my neck tomorrow.

Peace out

Hot Hot Hot

2008-06-07T20:51:00.002-04:00

I am sitting in my apartment ROASTING. Actually, given the fact that it is above 90 degrees outside, my apartment is not as hot as I would have thought it would be.

I have something about air-conditioning in my apartment. Believe me, I'm the first one to duck into a cool mall or movie theatre to get a brief respite from the intense heat. However, I've never been a fan of having my own living space air conditioned. I guess I spend the entire year waiting for the summer, so when it comes, I really like to feel it. Granted, some nights are tough int the old sixth floor sweat box apartment, but I have always opted to tough it out.

So you see, it's not an energy conservation thing. I wish I were that goody goody. Hey, if I wanted to blast some AC, I figure my carbon footprint is small enough to allow me to do so without guilt. (Thank god my carbon footprint is small. My real footprint is certainly not.) I take the bus and walk most places, so I'm saving the planet in my meanderings from point A to point B on any given journey. But enough about that...all I'm saying is that I wish I could say that I was taking an environmental stand against air conditioning so that I'd seem all cool and stuff, but really, I just don't like having AC at home.

Today was a strange day. The temperature soared above 90 for most of the day. When I left the house this morning, at around 7:00 AM, it was still cool enough for me to have a thin t-shirt on. But I could feel the heat lurking beneath the cool temps. Does that make any sense?

You cannot understand how much I love the hot weather.

I almost shed tears of joy on that first morning (usually in June) where I leave the apartment for the bus at 6:30 AM and it is already HOT! I'm not talking about the kind of thing that happened today, where you can tell that it is going to eventually get hot. I'm talking about the kind of day where you walk out your door super early and you're already dying in the heat. You know you don't stand a chance against it because you know it is only going to get hotter as the day wears on.

This is MY time of year!!!!

Second Time's A Charm

2008-06-05T21:01:00.000-04:00

You know the idiot colleague I referred to in my last post?

Well, I went to work today to discover that she had not only committed the supremely stupid thing once, but twice. She came forward today with her tail between her legs to admit to me that she had done the same thing in regards to a student not in my homeroom. It had gone unnoticed because the teacher in whose homeroom this student is enrolled, is out, and so the substitute never would have known.

Clearly she was trying to take things over our heads and was not counting on getting busted.

I know I'm being very cloak and dagger here. But please.

Re-do.

2008-06-04T07:02:00.001-04:00

I just deleted a post that I wrote last night. It dealt with the subject of work. Although I used no names, and nobody at work knows of my blog, I thought it might have been too much information.

Just suffice it to say that, once again, I am feeling saddled and extremely put upon by the incompetence of the resource room "teacher" who "services" my special education students.

It is such a farce.

Ahhhh....

2008-05-31T14:17:00.003-04:00

We've been noticing that our bed isn't very comfortable lately. Actually, it has been quite crappy for a good long while. But who the hell has the cash lying around to go out and buy a really good mattress? Not us. Well, we didn't think we did, anyway. But then we remembered our wedding money. Yeah, we did get married just about a year ago. And no, we haven't spent any of our wedding gift money.

So...for all of you who were generous enough to gift us with cash for our wedding...thanks, you've just bought us a very comfortable, very cool tempurdedic mattress.

We're hoping it is as great to own as it was to lounge on in the store.

We tried the regular, much less expensive mattresses, but we just kept coming back to the tempurpedic. And so, after much discussion and justification for such a large purchase, we decided to take the plunge.

While we were at it, we picked up a platform bed frame that will support the mattress without the box spring. We can't wait!

SSSSShhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

2008-05-31T06:10:00.002-04:00

Sometimes it is really hard for things to remain, as Lauren would say, "all secret squirrel." Most times, you actually want to know what people are keeping from you. I guess that's just par for the course in human nature. I mean, really, who likes not knowing what's going on?

But honestly, it seems that NOT finding out what goes on in the newly released Sex and the City movie is virtually impossible. I mean, every single one of those stupid entertainment shows is running stories about it. It's all over the internet. It was even the lead-in story on msn.com yesterday! And in the biggest shocker of all, there was a review of it on NPR last night! I make haste to switch the channel, because we all know that "review" is just a euphamism (or however the Christ you spell this word) for "movie spoiler."

So, everything from the actual movie images showing Carrie in a wedding gown, from the ceaseless "reviews" of the movie on the TV, radio and internet, have all but given the entire plot away.

But will I still go see the movie?

Bet your ass I will!!

Mmmmmmm...........

2008-05-30T19:58:00.000-04:00

Delicious wine. Try it.

Crisp. Smooth. Citrus-y.

Excellent at ten dollars a bottle.

Get thee to your local packie.

Things Heard in the Teachers' Staff Room

2008-05-27T20:28:00.003-04:00

Remember how, when you were a kid, you used to wonder if the teachers were talking about the kids during lunch? Eventually you'd convince yourself that the teachers would never do such a thing. Besides, didn't they have more interesting things to discuss?

The truth of the matter is that we absolutely do spend our entire lunch time (all 22 minutes of it) discussing our students.

I like to think that even though we sometimes vent about the less savory moments of the day, we still respect our students and have their best interests in mind. In short, our conversation is not malicious gossip, but rather mild venting, or problem solving to make the situation better.

I have a new student. He just arrived today. He has led a very difficult life. To say the least.

I found out about this boy's arrival when I walked into school this morning. He was there with his mom and his many siblings, and the principal introduced me to him and his mother. One of my colleauges, an obnoxious kindergarten teacher, had the audacity to say, "Boy....what a pain in the neck to get a new one at this point in the year," right in front of the kid and his mother. I did a quick damage control by turning to the boy and saying, "I'm really happy to have you here."

What a jerk, right?

Eventually I took my leave of the office to head up to my classroom to prepare for the day. The hideous kindergarten teacher, in spite of the fact that she will have no contact with this incoming 8th grader, lurked around the office listening to the rest of the conversation between the principal and the mother. I could not figure out why the principal didn't invite the woman into her office and close the door. It seemed clear to me that the woman was trying to be discreet.

So at any rate, the day gets under way and this young man ends up in my homeroom. He seemed like a nice enough kid; I'm sure it was difficult for him to turn up in late May as a member of our graduating class. He confided some pretty awful stuff in me. Enough to give me a snapshot about his incredibly difficult life.

Whatever.

Later at lunch, the kindergarten teacher who had been lurking in the office raced into the teachers' room, bursting at the seams with information to share. She launched into a rant about this kid and his family, revealing issues of a very sensitive nature in a loud bellow in front of a room full of people. I don't really care that she was sharing the news with my 7th and 8th grade colleagues we are all actually teaching the kid. But she was broadcasting these details to a bunch of people who have no reason to know them. Not to mention....the woman has no reason to know these things.

I did not allow her rant to last very long. I eventually put my hand up to silence her and reminded her that each and every student is entitled to "tabula rasa" status when they come to our school. We will give this young man the respect and dignity he deserves and do the best work that we can for him in these last 18 days of school.

I was really annoyed. This was not a useful FYI informational session with the guidance counselor or principal or somebody else whose responsibility it is to see to the well being of this young person. This was a malicious, gossip-spreading dog and pony show put on my some waste of oxygen who should really never have been allowed to stand before a class.

The funny thing is this...

There have been lots of times where I've wondered whether I've effectively taught the material in any given lesson, or whether this or that lesson tanked. However, when I think about the way some teachers treat the kids, with a complete lack of regard for their humanity, I realize that I'm doing pretty damn well by these kids. I try my best to teach them the skills they need, but more importantly, I think, is the fact that I actually try to extend a bit of kindness to them and let them know that somebody in their life cares about them.

Memorial Day Weekend...A Time to Remember Fashion Trends Long Forgotten

2008-05-26T17:52:00.002-04:00

We celebrated Memorial Day Weekend in New Hampshire, at the much written-about cabin. As per usual, conversation and beer flowed freely and a good time was had by all.

On Sunday we decided to take a hike. We opted to go to Cherry Mountain. The experience on this mountain just reinforced my belief that the first hike of the season should not be a trek straight up a relentless trail to the top of a mountain. Granted, most hiking does involve some elevation gain, and I have never been opposed to a little physical exertion out there on the trail. It just seems that one should ease one's ass (and back, hips, quads, calfs, hamstrings, etc.) into the hiking season on a more gentle, even ambling stroll through the woods. I have no qualms with a long distance hike, or a hike that takes several hours to complete. But this 90 degree push to the top of a mountain has never been my exact idea of a cup of tea. Again, the fact that this was my first official hike in months only served to further complicate the matter.

By the time we reached the top of the thing, I was dying. In fact, I think I was close to tears a few times as I would reach the top of what I thought might be the peak, only to see miles more uphill trail stretched out before me as far as the eye could see.

The real reason for this post, though, is this...

On our way to Cherry Mountain, we stopped off at the store to pick up some water and a few snacks. The young, twenty-something year-old woman manning the register was sporting a look that was so clearly a throw-back to 1984 that I almost fell over when I saw her.

She was rocking the pleated acid washed jeans (and yeah, they were pegged and tucked into her socks!) and the tassled acid washed waist-length jean jacket. I thought I had seen it all until she turned to get a bag for our purchases. On the back of her jacket, she had a huge Tweety Bird decal, with her name (Stefani) airbrushed in glittery rainbow itallic font!

OH MY GOD!!!

Even Stephen, who has the fashion observatory skills of our good friend, Stevie Wonder, noticed that strange things were afoot at Mac's Supermarket. He was asking me silently with his eyes, "Is this as bad as I think it is." I just nodded in the affirmative and we headed out to the car, where we both just sat in contemplative silence for a moment or two.

The funny thing is this....

In small town America, the time warp in fashion and music seems to be the norm. Aren't these people watching TV and seeing the latest fashion trends? Do they not know that the rest of the country has moved beyond the piggyback perm?

Or maybe they are watching TV, but the local affiliates of the major networks are still airing "Full House" as the prime time fare. Maybe they think the Michelle Tanner is current and that the is setting the up to the moment fashion trends?

Anyway, I'm not sure what's happening there, but it is strange!!!!

OK, enough of that...

I HAVE to know what happens at the end of the book "Wicked."

My good friend gave it to me for Christmas. I tried to get through it. No, that's an understatement. I made a heroic effort to get through it. I got all the way to page 274. But the talking animals and kingdoms and evil spells are all just deal-breakers to me. I'm not a fantasy person, you see.

But here's the thing, I MUST know how Elphaba, who seems to be quite nice in the book, turns Wicked, and how Galinda, who seems like a shallow jerk, turns out to be good. Can anybody shed any light??

Yearbook Jitters.

2008-05-23T21:30:00.002-04:00

I am the yearbook advisor to the 8th grade class. Well, let me rephrase that....the advisorship to the yearbook committee just kind of fell into my lap. There was an official club, separately funded, for the yearbook. A guy was the advisor, and he was being paid to do it.

Several weeks ago, the guy approached me and said, "Would you think about taking over the yearbook committee?" I tried to run as far away from that one as I could. Turns out the guy was leaving the kids, and would no longer be their yearbook advisor. So, the kids were officially in a lurch.

This is my first year with a grade 8 homeroom. How could I say no? So, I accepted the job, but on my own terms. I refused the pay, first and foremost. You might call me crazy, but here's my thinking...

The official yearbook meetings were taking place on Fridays until 5:00 PM. No way in HELLS am I interested in staying around until that late hour on a Friday afternoon. I have to get to the gym, and more importantly, start my weekend. Damn, cuz!

So, I figured if I were doing this on a volunteer basis, I could name my own hours and not be compelled to fulfill any time requirement, or stay on any specific day. Whatever.

What I didn't know when I reluctantly agreed to take on this project is that they had decided to do a digital yearbook. No paper. Just CDs to be distributed to to the kids at the end of year.

WTF????

As if I have ANY CLUE as to how to put this thing together.

I called the tech guy for the district, and he happily agreed to come and help me. Apparently the yearbook will be composed through a program called Microsoft Movie Maker. Seriously, folks, has anybody ever tried to use this thing? Let me just tell ya....it's impossible! I can figure out stuff on my Mac, but this world of PC is just a mystery to me. I scan pictures and save them, and then have no idea in Christ where they are when I go to find them in the computer to fill into the program.

Luckily some of the kids know how to use this thing, but still....

Is is right that I have more end-of-year anxiety than the kids in my class???

I mean, really, though. a CD yearbook!!!

This Must Be True Love

2008-05-22T19:26:00.003-04:00

I have a great husband. There are big and little things that he does on a daily basis that make me realize how lucky I am to have him in my life.

If I don't feel well, he puts everything aside to take care of me.

He joins me in watching Jeopardy every single night, even though he hates the show.

He never, ever complains when I'm up crashing around the apartment getting ready a full hour before he even needs to get out of bed.

I can't remember a time that he has ever gotten angry at me or said anything even remotely unkind to me.

However....(and you knew the "however" was coming), I can't believe some of the crap that he likes. Crappy science fiction movies. Bullshit fantasy movies. I mean, he doesn't watch that much of this junk, but please, even one second of it is too much. At the video store, if I see any movie with dragons, castles or wizards on the cover, I retreat to the other corner of the store...even as Stephen is moving closer to take a more in-depth look.

The fact that I will even be in the same apartment as this crap when it is playing on the TV must speak to the true love that I feel for my husband.

Because kids, make no mistakes, if this were anything less than love, I'd be having NO part of it.

That said, I really don't actively participate in it. I just either type away on the computer, read in the other room, or busy myself elsewhere and with some other task.

THIS JUST IN.....TWO SECONDS AGO...AND TWO SECONDS BEFORE THAT...AND TWO SECONDS BEFORE THAT....AND TWO SECONDS BEFORE THAT....

2008-05-21T18:45:00.003-04:00

Maybe you haven't heard the news. Maybe you live in a cave or under a rock somewhere. Perhaps you call the middle of the most remote corner of the Australian Outback home. Maybe you're stuck in the past, sometime before the advent of television, radio, cell phones, internet and, hell, even the printing press.

Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is suffering from a malignant brain tumor.

Yes, this is tragic. Sure, I feel bad for Kennedy (even though he left a woman to die under the ocean of Cape Cod while he went home to sleep one off) and his family. And yeah, when I first heard the news I saw surprised.

But here's the problem.....

THE DETAILS OF KENNEDY'S ILLNESS ARE BEING POSTED/ANNOUNCED/WRITTEN ABOUT EVERY TWO SECONDS. It is horrible. The moment I turn on the TV, log onto the internet or tune into the radio, the latest Kennedy news is being broadcast.

Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably in his hospital at this hour.

Senator Kennedy is said to be watching the Red Sox with his family in his hospital room.

Senator Kennedy has ordered dinner from Legal Seafood.

Senator Kennedy has ordered his senatorial staff back to work today.

Senator Kennedy has requested that he be discharged from the hospital.

And today, as he's driving home, helicopters are following overhead giving the play by play.

Senator Kennedy is turning left.

Senator Kennedy just flashed another driver the finger

Senator Kennedy just mooned another motorist out the back window.

Senator Kennedy pulled over to take a piss on the side of the road.

I'm not kidding you guys...it is THIS bad. I have never wanted to know this much about any person, let alone Senator Kennedy.

As I said, I'm not without compassion for anybody dealing with illness; I just don't want a detailed journal of their every bowel movement!

Off Target

2008-05-21T18:03:00.003-04:00

I was able to give blood today. My iron level, as predicted, was pretty low, but I was still able to give. The initial "finger prick" test, (which I SWEAR is the worst part of the entire ordeal), showed that I was too low on iron. But the nurse asked a colleague to come over and retest me. They didn't simply re-test the blood they'd already drawn, but rather pricked another finger. Christ! This time, the iron count just managed to eek to where it needed to be.

Anyway, I was like a speed donator. It only took seven minutes for me to fill up my pint bag. (I've been known to knock back a pint of beer in under seven minutes, so I guess there's some poetic meaning in that.)

Upon initially retiring to the "snack center" for my juice and cookies, I felt completely fine. However, as I continued to sit around, waiting for my friend to finish up, a lightheadedness started to creep over me. I made the mistake of mentioning this to the woman manning the snack center. She was all ready to call over the doctor. I assured her I would be fine, but she still insisted on calling the doctor over. The doctor wanted me to lie down in some cot. Mercifully there was already somebody else there who hadn't reacted so well to the donation. So, the doctor let me sit where I was.

It was my first time in this particular school building, and I was eager to walk around and check the place out. However, as I gazed up on the stairs, they almost started to swim in my vision, so I decided it best to leave that for another day.

I guess I wasn't too effed up, because I managed to go to Target after leaving the blood drive. Although, truth be told, I didn't go into the Mecca of shopping with my usual gusto. If anything I was rather lethargic as I made my way aimlessly around the place. Me not being psyched in Target? That's when you know something is wrong. I usually love that dump!!

So, I am home now. Not after waiting an entire hour for the bus that would eventually take me here. Man!

I skipped the gym. I guess I'm not meant to exercise after giving blood. All the better, because I'm just not up for it.

Crazily enough, I could really use a beer. I don't think I'm supposed to do that, either, but I might just have to ignore doctor's orders.

I

Blood Money

2008-05-20T20:51:00.006-04:00

Tomorrow there is a city-sponsored blood drive at one of our public schools. I signed up to donate blood at 12:45.

Tomorrow is an early release day. The kids get dismissed at noon, but teachers are contracted to stay until 2:45. I was told that if I signed up to donate blood, I could go over, donate and then immediately leave to go home.

Now don't get me wrong. I believe in donating blood. I have done it more times than I can count. However, the last three times, due to low iron levels, I was unable to donate. That most likely will be the case again. But nobody will find out, right?

So, tomorrow I get to give a pint of blood and then head home.

Hell...at this point I'd give a kidney to get out of work a little early.

shopping woes

2008-05-17T19:12:00.002-04:00

I know I've posted about this before. Indulge me.

It was a beautiful day today. In my meanderings through town, I stopped off at a few clothing stores. I am pretty desperate for some new summer clothes. Why not head into TJ Maxx and the Gap. A little shopping never killed anybody. Well, maybe it never killed anybody outright, but I'm sure it has killed a few people's self-esteem. I know it has put a major dent in mine.

Here's the problem. The clothes all look terrible!! Is it me, or is it the clothes? In an effort to preserve my sanity, I'm going to blame it on the clothes.

Here are the offending factors....

1. The huge, gaping pockets located square on the side pockets of every single pair of pants I tried on. Now, in a cruel twist of fate, they are even making skirts with these things! Jesus...I'm all set with heft in the hip area. Why do these clothing manufacturers think I could possibly want to look bigger in that already vast expanse??????

2. The looooooooong skinny shirts. These things literally come down to my knees. And they cling to every last inch of my bod. Gross. Sausage, anyone?

3. Conversely, the big, puffy hippy shirts. These are the things that are tight-fitting around the bust and then flowing through the bodice. Keep in mind, I've tried everything to make these things work. Because they're so loose-flowing around the bodice, I've tried going down a size from what I normally wear. That's great, save for the fact that the bust is then so tight that I look like Heidi, the German milkmaid. If I try on my normal size, the bust fits, but I'm swimming in the rest of the shirt.
So, I guess that means I can either look pregnant because the shirts are totally long and tight fitting, or I can look pregnant because the shirts flow off of my ample bosom and create the "pregnant tent" appearance. How flattering.

4. The sleeveless shirts are all absolutely massive around the arm openings. The look then becomes this "expose my entire bra and oblique area because the arm holes are so massive." Sorry to make reference to my big chest again, but Christ, if I can't fill in one of these shirts...who the hell can????? Who are they making these things for?

5. The pants that are so long that I'm stepping on 16 inches of extra material...even when I try on the freakin' petit length. Again, who are they making these pants for? I'm like six foot nine. If these pants are too long for me, I NEED to see the person whom they're designed for. I really need to see these women.

I don't know. I'm just saying.

I HATED the way every single item of clothing that I tried on looked. Then again, it is my own fault. I've been bitching about the damn Gap for ages, and yet I keep going back in there. That's it. I'm swearing off the Gap for the rest of my life. Or at least until the next time I'm in Coolidge Corner.

Hey....check this out. I got on a train today and I swear to God it was being driven by Saddam Hussein. I think they need to exhume this bastard's grave, because if I didn't know any better, I'd say he's driving the B-Line route on the green line.

Lost

2008-05-17T11:34:00.003-04:00

Have you guys seen the show Lost? Probably. You're all probably completely up to date on the happenings. That said...DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING!

You see, I'm still watching season 2.

It all started out a little something like this... We had been renting and watching the Showtime series, "The L Word." We were about to rent out the first disc of season 3, but the guy who owns the little rinky dink video store down the street didn't have anything beyond season 2. Stephen was waiting outside in the double parked car, and I felt the pressure to just grab something quick. I was already in the "television section" (and I use the word "section" liberally as the guy only has like 12 videos in his entire collection), and alphabetically at the L's. So, having heard decent things about "Lost," I figured it was just as easy to grab season one disc 1.

We brought it home and watched it. My reception of the show at first was lukewarm at best. There was some talk of a monster early into the series. I am totally opposed to any dragon, monster, fantasy crap, so that was almost a deal breaker for me. I remember hunkering down to my computer to play Scrabble online with my friend John in China while Stephen watched the end of the episode.

However, eventually my attention was drawn back to "Lost" and I've been hooked ever sense.

Renting out the discs was costing us an arm and a leg, so we decided to join Netflix. Our first installations of "Lost" on Netflix came just two days after we joined up. Pretty impressive.

According to my colleague, Bill, it is a good idea to rent Lost on discs because the show is only on sporadically at best, and at that, they repeat episodes for ages before just moving on. So, the frustration factor is completely absent. That's the up side. The down side is that I have to do a bit of television coreography to make sure that I don't see sneak previews of upcoming current episodes when I'm watching else on the boob tube. And I have a few students who love Lost and to whom I have made the mistake of telling that I'm watching the show. Although I've told them that I'm way behind, and although I've implored them not to discuss current episodes, they still let some details slip.

But anyway, if you're looking for something cool to check out, I suggest "Lost."

self-spoiled.

2008-05-16T21:33:00.002-04:00

We all know that I'm an absolute sucker for cool Apple products. Today i visited the brand spanking new Apple store in Boston. It was, as expected, very sexy and modern. I was prompted to visit by the fact that my iPod mini busted yesterday. The control wheel was completely jacked up. I was not even able to press it down to control the functions of the iPod. So, I just gave up on it and decided to go for a Shuffle. I went for the 1 gig model. It holds 240 songs. That's more than enough for me. I just want it for walking and for the gym. I can't envision needing more than 240 songs for any given outing. Besides, when I buy my new desktop in the fall, I'll get my educator's discount package, which includes my free iPod mini.

I decided to spoil myself with this purchase because this has been a hard week. The kids have been emotional, which has manifested itself in their being combative, weepy, or oppositional. Today, one of or seventh graders was celebrating his last day with us as his family has moved out of the district. He decided to call my colleague, his homeroom teacher, a few choice filthy names, and to threaten her. The police were called, and a stern warning was issued.

Jesus!

It's the freakin' weekend, and I'm going to tune into my new iPod shuffle to tune out the crap.

Free!!

2008-05-15T20:24:00.002-04:00

Today I was free. And so was Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. Let me explain.

The Dunkin Donuts part is easy. Once a year, they offer free small iced coffees to all customers. I guess it is their way of officially welcoming warm weather and introducing customers to their refreshing iced beverage.

As for me being free....

I took my personal day today. It was GREAT!!!!! I basically decided to use it this week because next week is our big state testing week and after that, all kinds of 8th grade graduation stuff needs to be put into place. So, this seemed like the idea week. I chose Thursday because my favorite aerobics instructor has a Thursday 9:00 AM class on Thursdays that I obviously never get to make.

It was a great day. I took full advantage of the step class. And I also took FULL advantage of the Dunkins offers. I hit the Cleveland Circle dunks this morning and this afternoon, the Porter Square Dunks after my step class, the Harvard Square Dunks before getting onto the bus. And I don't think that was all...although I can't exactly remember where else I went.

Having the day off was excellent. I am NEVER out! NEVER. It is such a sweet feeling to look at my watch and think, "Hmmm...right about now I'd be starting third period. I wonder if so and so is behaving himself." But I have to let it go because I'm not there!

Long live personal days.

Miracle Cure

2008-05-11T20:49:00.002-04:00

If you don't like pimple talk, this might not be the post for you.

I have been pretty lucky with my skin through the years. Sure, I've had the occasional, errant blemish. But for the most part, my skin's been pretty decent to me.

But have you ever had that kind of horrible, painful, huge, under-the-skin pimple that just won't budge for weeks and weeks on end? And although it stays under the skin, the hideous red bump that lifts itself up is just sitting there, impossible to avoid? If you have not had one of these things, consider yourself very, very fortunate.

Anyway, from time to time I get one of these disgusting things on my chin. Always on the chin. I even think about touching the thing, and a bolt of electric pain shoots through my entire head. It is horrendous. And it literally feels like it is staking its claim on the entire space of my chin.

A few years ago, when I had one such pimple, I tried everything to get rid of it. Nothing worked. It was getting bigger and bigger and more and more painful by the minute. I stopped into Aveda out of sheer desperation and asked if they had anything to help with acne. Even as I was asking, I thought, "How stupid of me." I mean, sure, these people make nice cleanser and moisturizer, but these cosmetic companies really can't do anything about acne. Or so I thought.

The guy working there immediately pointed me to the above pictured product. He began to launch into his sales pitch by explaining that this product is a pure oil. I stopped him dead in his tracks and expressed my doubts about applying an oil directly to the blemish. Seems a little counterproductive, right? The guy went on to clarify; "It's not crisco!" he insisted.

So I bought the thing. I remember standing there in my bathroom mirror for minutes on end, silently encouraging myself to put this pure oil on my hideous pimple. Finally, I did it. I remember feeling the panic set in as I watched my now oily chin and my big old red mountain glisten in the bathroom mirror. Unable to look at it any longer, I shut off the light and took leave of the bathroom. I headed to bed. When I awoke in the morning, my chin no longer felt oily, but rather pleasantly dry. I touched my chin to discover that the size of the offending zit had shrunk considerably. Amazing. When I looked in the mirror, it was all but gone. One more day of treatment and it was entirely gone. Amazing!

So, I have taken to using a couple of drops of it blended into my oil-free, sensitive skin moisturizer every time I moisturize. This was upon the suggestion of the good people at Aveda, whom I trust with these issues for obvious reasons.

Anyway, Friday night I was coming home on the bus and I just so happened to feel a little itch on my chin. To my utter horror, I felt one of these pimples taking shape. It was going to be massive and agonizingly painful. I already knew that I had run out of my oil product and had not stashed up. On Saturday morning, my chin was in an abysmal state. I could hardly stand looking at myself in the mirror. Gross. And it was so sore!

I finally made it over to Aveda in the afternoon, and started the attack on the zit with my oil. I thought this one might even be beyond the capabilities of the magic oil, but I figured I should give it a try.

Lo and behold, today, Sunday, the thing is totally dried out, flat and there is nothing but a little tiny dot of red visible on my chin. I don't think it would even notice except for the fact that I know what had been lurking under my skin just mere hours ago.

So...if you are looking for a magic potion for those pesky blemishes, look no further. This is it.

This just in....World does not end at tip of nose, contrary to the belief of millions!

2008-04-24T16:44:00.003-04:00

I am a REAL stickler for time. I've always been an extremely punctual person and being made to wait around for people who can't be bothered to make the effort to show up on time drives me crazy. It always seems as though we fools who show up early or on time are forced to make concessions to the slow pokes of the world.

When I was leaving Washington, DC, my flight was delayed for "late arriving passengers." I asked the flight attendant if that meant people who needed to connect to this flight had been delayed on the previous flight. Fair play, right? I mean, if your flight is delayed, you can't be on time for your connection. However, the flight attendant just said, "No, it looks like some folks just aren't here yet. It has nothing to do with a connection."

I was flummoxed. I mean I had been there for the suggested two hours prior to the flight. Apparently that is nothing but a mere suggestion.

What ever happened to the "You snooze you lose" way of doing things? I mean, really! This isn't a city bus, folks, we're trying to catch a flight. And you could argue that those people were stuck up in security lines or some such. I contend, however, that if they had gotten to the airport in a timely manner, they would have time to clear security. We should all understand security in a post 9/11 world. If we're leaving five minutes to get from the airport parking lot to the flight gate, we should be taught our lesson the hard way.

But no, the airline decides instead to wait around for the stragglers.

No wonder the percentage of on time flights is abysmal a this point. Doesn't this just breed a race of latecomers? I mean, really....after seeing this display, what's my incentive to show up early or on time? I might just start leaving my apartment twenty minutes before flight time. They're going to wait for me after all. Why hurry?

And just today I went to the gym to take a step class. It was in Cambridge at 9:00. I left my apartment for a 7:10 bus, which is admittedly really early. I just couldn't sleep any longer, so I decided to get out and enjoy the lovely weather. Anyway, I digress...

I learned that the class would be held in the smaller of the two studios. It used to be in the larger one, but has apparently been shuffled to the smaller one. (I don't often make this class as it is in the morning on a Thursday.)

When I learned that the class would be in the smaller studio, I was glad to be there early. I looked at the clock. It was 8:15. I set up my bench in the room, and then went out to lift weights. By 8:55, the room was pretty mobbed. I was glad to have set up already. The class started uneventfully at 9. Lo and behold, at 9:10, the same ASSHOLE who shows up to every single class that she takes at least ten minutes late comes strolling into the room. She seemed to be momentarily deterred by the fact that the room was filled to capacity. However, she didn't give up that easily. She went over to get her bench, knocking everybody over and all and causing everybody to miss up their coreography, etc. She got her bench and marched STRAIGHT OVER TO WHERE I WAS STANDING AND SET UP RIGHT ON TOP OF ME. Then, she had the nerve to interrupt me and walk right up to me and ask say, "I know I was here late and you were here on time, and I know this is really a pain, but could you move over? I'm crashing into the weights over here."

Maybe it is mean of me, but I just looked at her briefly and then resumed my workout. I didn't even answer her. I was thinking, "SCREW this!" She said herself that it was a pain and that I was there on time.

The thing that really baffles me is how these idiots can think that they have the right to show up late, inconvenience everybody, and that everybody should move out of their way! No way!

Annoying, right?

Like I said, this might just be me getting too tightly wound over something silly, but it drives me to the brink.

"Capital" Punishment.

2008-04-23T08:59:00.002-04:00

So I decided to head down to Washington, DC to visit my friend, Leslie, for the first few days of the April vacation. Makes sense, right? I mean, it's always great to catch up with friends. It also makes sense to travel south for nice weather, right?

Wrong.

It did NOTHING BUT POUR\ the entire time I was there. I'm not talking about drizzle. Not even a steady rain. It was an endless stream of opaque sheets of rain. It sucked. I was totally unmotivated to get out of my little tour bus to walk around the monuments.

Anyway here are a couple of photos I took.

The picture above might suggest that the weather wasn't that bad. I just played around with iPhoto to try to make the skies look less dismal. In fact, look at the same undoctored photo below to see just how shite it really was.

And yeah, here's another shot of the lovely weather.

What more can I say.

The Longest Week

2008-04-17T21:14:00.002-04:00

I keep thinking today is Friday. I have been making this mistake all day long. I think it is wishing thinking on my behalf. Tonight we had to endure evening parent-teacher conferences. I guess I was willing myself to be past Thursday evening parent conferences, and straight on through to Friday. The fact that April vacation is next week could be another driving force behind my wishing it were already Friday. That would, after all, just bring me one day closer to vacation.

But alas, it is Thursday. And tomorrow is another full day of school. But then...April Vacation. An entire week off. Nice!!

I am going down to DC for a few days, to visit my friend, Leslie. I'm not sure exactly what we'll get up to, but I'm sure it will be fun. Leslie and I always have a few laughs when we get together. I'm sure this will be no different.

One of my students got mad at me yesterday because I made her sit down during a chorus performance. The students were made to sit on the floor, which does suck, but nevertheless.....

Anyway, I had heard rumors of her temper, but had never seen it firsthand. She was pissed at me yesterday, which prompted me to have the very gentle, "You know, sometimes we have to put up with things we don't like when we have to function productively in a community like a school or a workplace" conversation. It just brought about more huffing and puffing.

Today the same student was a jerk in my class. I tried to check in with her again, but she was super obnoxious again.

I guess I'll leave it for a few days.

Jesus....

Is this my career?

This Just In....I'm getting old!

2008-04-16T18:34:00.002-04:00

Today the high school chorus came to our school to perform for the 7th and 8th graders. They make the rounds of the middle school classes every year to basically recruit the incoming freshmen.

I was monitoring my class, of course, and probably spending more energy doing that than actually listening to the singing. I cast a glance up onto the chorus risers to see if I recognized any of the kids as former graduates of my middle school crew. Not recognizing any of the kids, I turned my attention back to my own students. Toward the end of the performance, the chorus director asked any kids who had attended my school in 8th grade to raise their hands. I was shocked when five hands popped up. I neared the risers to look again at the faces. I've been teaching 8th grade at my school for 7 years, so clearly all of the kids on the risers had passed through my class within the last four years.

A few of the faces suddenly took on a familiar air, but the others were still completely unfamiliar.

After the performance, the kids who had attended my school ran over to say hello, give hugs, report on what's new in their lives, etc. As soon as they neared and started talking, I immediately remembered every single one of them, and could imagine what they looked like as they sat in my class. But my goodness, they look so different now. They are "all growed up." The hair. The makeup. The clothes.

Anyway, yeah, I'm getting a little long in the tooth!!

Seeing former students is always GREAT, but it always makes me feel over the hill. Ha ha.

MCAS Hell.

2008-04-05T19:55:00.003-04:00

The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) is a pain in the ass. It is the state standardized testing and it is a real bear. It would be one thing if the kids had a day or two of testing, but this thing goes on for months. The kids are tested in just about every subject every year or every other year. It sucks.

It throws every single school into total scheduling hell and turmoil.

My kids had the ELA test this week. My 8th grade special ed kids had to go test with this jackass who calls himself a resource room teacher. Apparently, he sat there talking with the other teacher in the room for the entire first day of testing. The other teacher kept trying to physically distance herself from the guy, retreating to the far corner of the room, hoping that he would shut the Christ up. This was to no avail. Finally she convinced the jerk to go take a coffee break, and the kids got a few moments of peace and quiet.

Yesterday the kids came back to my homeroom from his class and reported that he had been talking on his cell phone to his insurance company about a car accident the entire time. When they asked him to hang up because they could not concentrate, he told them, "You're not doing well anyway." He brushed them off and continued talking. And let me just say that this man is hardly discreet. Everything he does his slovenly and loud. He's disgusting.

As I was taking my class to lunch, this really good kid M.M. called me from the other end of the hall. He had apparently decided to stop taking the test and wait until 11:30 when he knew he would see my class filing to lunch. He took it upon himself to dismiss himself from that room and come to me to tell me that he was unable to complete his work. I was livid.

Under normal circumstances, teachers present a united front to the kids, even if they disagree with each other. However, this test is just way too high stakes. I marched the kid right into the vice principal so he could tell her what had happened. He was so frustrated. He said, "Mrs. H., if you don't believe me, I can even tell you what street the accident happened on and what Mr. F.'s doctor said because HE WAS TALKING ABOUT IT THE ENTIRE TIME."

We managed to calm MM down and the VP made space for him to sit and work in her office.

This is just so F'ed up on so many levels. First and foremost...as I mentioned, this test is so freakin' high stakes. All the kids have to be given the chance to succeed. I get a kick out of this a-hole ruining this test for the kid. What does he care? The kid's test goes under my name, not his.

But perhaps the most important element at play here is the fact that this alleged special education teacher would tell a special education student that he might as well endure his endless phone conversation because he's not going to do well anyway.

WTF???

I might not be the best teacher ever. Occasionally a lesson bombs, or the kids did not get from point A to point B in a timely manner. Sometimes the activities get convoluted or whatever. Sometimes the kids don't connect to the lesson the way I had anticipated. But Jesus, I have never just told a kid to give up because he has no chance of succeeding. That's disgusting.

Mmmmmm.........

2008-03-30T12:51:00.003-04:00

Usually I'm a beer/wine girl, but last night I went out with my friend, Becky, who is much more the "cocktail" sort. I decided to indulge myself in a fancy cocktail, but I never know what to order. The main reason that I stay away from mixed drinks is that they usually taste so BOOZY to me. I know that might appeal to a lot of people, but not to me. Booze tastes like paint thinner to me. Too harsh. I guess that's why I stick with wine and beer.

Anyway, I asked the very nice Irish bartender to recommend a not-too-boozy, not-too-sweet cocktail. Maybe something tart or citrusy. The bartender thought for a moment and asked, "Do you like grapefruit?" When I replied in the affirmative, he immediately set to busying himself with all kind of paraphernalia....ice, shaker, martini glass, several bottles...you get the picture.

When he was finished, there was a very pretty red/orange drink in a martini glass with a little twist of lemon zest wrapped around the rim. Lovely.

I asked what the drink was, but the bartender just encouraged me to try it first before asking 20 questions.

I brought the concoction to my lips and was delighted with the light, but very intensely grapefruit flavored taste. It was lovely.

Apparently was a "ruby red martini" made with Ruby Red Absolut. After I'd polished it off, (every last drop, of course), the barman asked me if I wanted another. I almost went ahead and ordered a second one, but then logic prevailed. If it didn't taste at all boozy, that didn't mean that it wasn't boozy. Probably just the opposite. So, I stopped at one, but I could have had fifty.

Get thee to a local bar and order up a Ruby Red Martini!

MMMM.....

Hell-Evator Ride From Hell.

2008-03-26T17:47:00.003-04:00

In our quirky little building, our quirky little elevator recently became the source of my greatest nightmare.

On Tuesday morning, I solicited the elevator to the 6th floor. I boarded the elevator, checking my watch and calculating how much time I had to catch my bus. When the elevator stopped, I went to step off. The only problem seemed to be that the door wasn't opening. The elevator was no longer moving, and try as I may by pressing every single button in the thing, I could not get the door to budge.

I called Stephen on my cell. As soon as I heard myself announce to him that I was stuck on the elevator, the panic sank in. All of a sudden, I could not breathe. The elevator is tiny and dingy to begin with, but it seemed to be getting smaller by the second. It was horrifying. Stephen urged me to try all the buttons again. This I did. To no avail.

Stephen came down the stairs, calling through the elevator doors at each floor to see if he could locate me. Eventually was able to hear him. He was on the first floor, but his voice sounded like it was slightly below me. I was clearly trapped somewhere between the first and second floors.

At this point, I was hyperventilating. I found some paper with an "In case of elevator emergency" number, and promptly dialed it. I thought I would be dialing some elevator manufacturer in China, but was extremely relieved when I was greeted with, "C and J management, how can we help?" (C and J being the management company for our building.) Somehow I managed to blurt out that I was trapped in the elevator. The woman, a seemingly kind soul, issued some reassuring words, telling me to sit tight while she paged the manager. Several minutes passed with no update from the answering service, so I dialed back. This time, the "seemingly kind soul" greeted me with an annoyed, "What do you want??" She could not possibly be serious, right? WHAT DID I WANT? Ahhh...how about getting me out of this f*&@#ing rat trap for starters!!!

Anyway, realizing that our useless building "super" was going to do everything to protect his "useless" title, Stephen decided to call 911. Perhaps my deep panic in the elevator help lead him to this decision, too.

Within a few moments, I heard the sirens outside of the building. "Thank Christ" was all I could think.

Finally I heard the firefighters who had come to my rescue. I was almost weeping with joy and relief to realize they hadn't even bothered to send the cops, but rather had gone directly for the fire fighters. I mean, I am not putting cops down, and I realize the important role they play in our society and I'm thankful to them for it, but seriously...in situations like this, when you know shit is going to have to be DONE, you NEED and WANT the firefighters. Those peeps don't even try to waste time screwing around. They just get the job done. No small talk. No farting around. But the thing that I always find amazing about firefighters is that while they're getting right down to business, they always seem to find a word or two of reassurance or comfort for the person in distress.

Needless to say, Boston's Bravest did not disappoint in this regard. One of the firefighters, while trying to instruct me how to "kill the power" in the elevator, managed to call me every pet name in the book, all the while assuring me that they were there to help and I could stop worrying. I think it went something like this..."Ok, honey. Look, Sweetheart. What I need to you to do, Doll, is try to look around, Darling, and find the power switch, Pumpkin, and turn it down, Love." When I became alarmed at not finding the thing, the guy asked me, "Ok, Pet, no problem, Dear. You're in an older elevator, Sugar, and so you just leave it to us to figure out what to do, Baby." (Is this a typical Irish Boston Firefighter, or what? )

At any rate, intense conversation pursued as to how the would kill the power on the thing. At some point, they must have sounded as if they didn't know what to do, and I must have slid into a deeper panic because I think I hysterically said, "You're the firefighters. You always know what to do. Please don't tell me you don't know what to do!" I don't have a recording of what I sounded like, but I'm willing to wager that I sounded like a woman on the edge.

At this point, I was unsure of how many firefighters were there. However, at this point, when I expressed this primal fear that I was encapsulated in this elevator for the rest of my days, I heard about 6 voices make haste to reassure me that they would not leave my side until I was out of there, "even if it took all day and night." They made a solemn promise that they would stick with me, and I believed they would. I immediately started to breathe easier.

At any rate, the discussion seemed to end when the men reached a consensus that the best way to kill the power was through a control mechanism that is almost always on the roof of the building. When I meekly asked why they needed to kill the power, one disembodied firefighter's voice informed me that since I was clearly between floors, they needed to kill the power in case they had my body partially out of the shaft, and the elevator decided to start moving again.

'Nuff said.

Stephen accompanied a duo of the firefighters to the roof egress. The reached the 7th floor when he realized, "Crap, we don't have keys to the roof door!"

A voice behind him calmly stated, "I do."

Stephen turned to see one of the men with is axe at the ready. With it, he proceeded to nonchalantly bust open the door. He then walked, without missing a beat, to the box containing the elevator mechanisms, and used his axe to bust the hell into that thing, too. He proceeded to kill the power.

At some point, the firefighters who had adjourned to the roof returned and reported that it was safe to begin the entry into the elevator itself. I saw the beam of a flashlight enter the elevator and the men told me that they were coming in.

I heard the god awful crunch of metal and steel being manipulated in most unnatural ways.

At long last, the door was pried open, and I looked down into the eyes of my knights in shining armor...6 of Boston's Bravest.

As I said, I was somewhere between the first and second floors. When the men opened the elevator, they could see my legs from my knees down. I could, in turn, look down and see those guys looking up at me.

I started to jump the hell out of there, but they stayed me, asking me to patiently wait out the enactment of their elevator rescue protocol. Of course I obliged, even though the instinct to jump out of there was so great.

Anyway, they laid a ladder sideways across the exposed elevator shaft, braced their feet against it, and then instructed me to lay flat on my back in the elevator, with my feet pointed toward the door.

This I did, albeit feeling completely ridiculous.

The firefighters instructed me to inch my body toward the open door. Two of them stood on either side of me, catching my ankles and calf muscles. As I inched further, two of them grabbed me from under the thighs and low back. Still two more supported me from just under the shoulders. Eventually, my body was soaring above six strapping firefighters, parallel to the floor below.

Ever the caring professionals, they did not remove their supportive hands, even from my ankles, until my feet were again on terra firma.

Guys, all I have to say is THANK GOD for firefighters. I have always known they are the true heros in any crisis. This only proved my theory.

So, to all the firefighters in the world, including the best one, CALIFORNIA MO....Thank you for what you do every day.

Kiss my Ve Ri T-ASS

2008-03-19T20:26:00.002-04:00

I was rejected by Harvard...AGAIN!!

I found out on Sunday through an email. My immediate reaction may surprise you. I was actually quite relieved.

Really.

You see, just that morning I was beginning to absorb the reality of what my life would be like if I were in school full time and not earning an income. I'd have to bid adieu to my beloved gym membership, my regular eyebrow waxing appointments, my frequent Target runs and so many other little things. My occasional iTunes purchases, for example, or my visits to the sale rack at Ann Taylor Loft.

I mean sure, the prestige of attending Harvard would have been great, but I don't do the whole "broke graduate student" thing very well. And why should I? I'm 34, for Chrissakes. I've been professionally employed for 13 years. How could I go back to drinking Milwaukees Best Light when my tastebuds have already been tickles by Czechevar, that oh-so-sweet nectar of the gods.

But OK, as soon as the relief subsided, I became a little indignant about the whole thing. Jesus. Why didn't they accept me? So, I called the admissions office to speak to one of the admissions officers. The woman told me that they were looking to generate a "more diverse student body." I assured her that I bring a very diverse perspective to the conversation. I'm older than the average applicant, for starters. I've had more life and professional experience. I've taught in an language immersion program her in the US. I spent two years teaching overseas, another in urban public education.

My line of conversation seemed to agitate the admissions officer. She told me, "That's not exactly the type of diversity we're looking for." As I pressed her to define "diversity" in terms of what I was lacking, she became increasingly uncomfortable and eventually asked me to told. Several moments later, she came back with a newfound sense of self-assuredness and snapped, "Your math GRE scores were really low."

Keep in mind, I am an English teacher. But rather than belabor the point, I simply said, "I understand" and exited the clearly pointless exchange.

I will stand up and face the people to whom I freely declared, "I think I'll get in. The real challenge shouldn't be the admission, but rather the fellowship." I probably came across as arrogant, although I didn't mean to. So, feel free to serve me up a big slab of humble pie and I'll happily tuck right into it. The rejection took me by surprise, but a little humility was never known to kill anybody.

Seriously though, those Harvard Be-atches don't know what they're missing because I'm fabulous. And that's the troof!!

Ha ha.

But come on....a rejection letter through email. Are they taking a page from Jack Burger, the asshole who dumped our Sex and the City heroine, Carrie Bradshaw, on a post-it note? Apparently so.

So, the plan is to stay the course at Umass Boston. I'm in a course now, and I can take a couple more over the summer. I have 5 years to do what I need to do, so I'm in good shape. And best of all, I get to keep my job and my paycheck. All is right with the world. With my world, that is.

As for the other happenings in my world:

My friend, Sharyn, lent me her hair straightening iron and, boy, has it changed my life. The thing rules. And it is so damn easy to use. If I am saying this gadget is easy, believe me, it is. If you don't have one of these things, I'd highly recommend checking one out.

My friend, Clay, got me to join up to Facebook. I had heard of it, but had no idea how to use it. When I signed up, I was all confused and shit. But with a little practice and frequent exposure to the requisite lingo, I was a seasoned pro. The great thing is that you can search people and then add them as your friends. You can then root around your friends' profiles to see if they have any long-lost acquaintances in common with you. You can then avoid doing the legwork of finding that third party, and just add them to your friends list as well. Genius.

And the best part of all is that you can play Scrabble games with folks. My friend, John, who lives in China (!) and I reconnected through Facebook and we're devout Scrabble mates now. Of course he kills me in every game because he uses these word generators that feed him words like "XDQQXXYQ." This would probably value like 4,000 points. I could use the same things, but I refuse as I'm a game purist...especially for word or language games. Sure, there may be a word, "XXXQQXX" that means "boil on the ass of a newborn rhino, but I've never heard of it, so I won't use it. That's just how I roll.

At this point my track record is that I've lost 23 games and won 2. At least I've lost those 23 games under my own intellectual steam.

Ok, I'm losing typing steam here.

My last thought....check out the "L Word" Showtime series. It's worth watching.

Burdened.

2008-03-05T19:43:00.002-05:00

I am back at my Mac, and I actually know how to post pictures, but for this entry I won't.

Normally my pictures are whimsical or cheeky or whatever. Today, however, I'm feeling neither emotion.

You know the AWESOME kid that I blogged about just a short while ago? Well, he came around to my classroom after school today to talk. I know he's been in a pretty rough state for the past week or so. He's been stressed, disengaged and generally withdrawn. I mentioned to him this morning that I'm always around if he ever feels like chatting.

Anyway, following dismissal he showed up and he basically poured out his soul to me. Everything that has been weighing on this brilliant mind came pouring out and it was worse than I had ever expected it to be. He was crying as he talked. I was on the verge of crying, myself, as I listened.

Jesus, it just places much-needed but often overlooked perspective on the fact that these kids are coming to school with so much CRAP on their minds. How can we honestly expect school to be a priority to them when they're so burdened by the difficulties of their own lives?

This poor baby.

I restate that I will go and break the miserable face of anybody who ruins this kid. Not this kid. I won't have it.

I Love My 8th Grade Homeroom

2008-02-28T21:43:00.002-05:00

Last year I had a 7th grade homeroom. When the two 8th grade homeroom teachers retired, I jumped at the chance to take an 8th grade homeroom. I Love 8th graders.

Anyway, last year, the kids were chatting. They were talking about who would play them in a movie of their lives. They asked me who would play me, and I wasted no time in telling them that I surely believed that Samuel L. Jackson would be the most obvious choice. At this, they were delighted.

They have been teasing me about it ever since. Now, as an 8th grade homeroom teacher, I have many of the same kids that I had last year. They still laugh about that. They call me Sameuel sometimes, or Mrs. Jackson. We all laugh.

The school district updated our employee ID cards last week, and never took our old ones away. So, I took my old one and doctored it up a little bit with a picture of Samuel. I just left it on my neck chain and let the kids notice it on their own.

Not long into the morning homeroom period, one of the girls noticed it and made a big deal out of it. The kids all started laughing.

This kid, let's call him James, didn't even seem to notice. But James isn't the swiftest kid in the pack.

James is in my 3rd period English class. About halfway through the lesson, when I was standing in front of his desk, he started looking intently at my ID tag. He asked, "Ms. B., did you get a new ID photo?" I said, "Why yes, I did. What do you think of it?"

He looked at it a moment longer and said, "Well, not to be rude, but you look sort of older in it."

The whole room stopped breathing. Here was this kid, serious as a heart attack, telling me that the only thing noticably different about the photo of Samuel L. Jackson was the fact that I looked older. Granted, Samuel is quite a bit older than me. That said, shouldn't the student have found it more remarkable that I was suddenly a bald African-American man with a beard???

Welcome to my job.

Then, later, during "silent reading" (I use quotes because this is often the loudest period of the day), I noticed a science book lying around on my counter top. I have been trying to crack the whip against errant school materials lately, so I wasted no time asking the owner of the book to step forward. All the kids were quick to point out that they had their own books.

I passed the book to my favorite student of all times and asked him to look inside to find the name of the owner and return the book. He shyly said, "Ms. B., I can't tell you whose book this is." But there was something lurking behind his shy demeanor. "What do you mean, you can't?" I asked. "Is there no name in it."

"Well," he said, "there is, but I can't say."

"What?"

I took the book from the kid, and prepared to announce the owner's name out loud. I was on the verge of shouting it out. But just before I did, I noticed that under the "Issued to" line was the name "Your Ass."

Lovely. Apparently the book was issued to "Your Ass" this year.

I looked at the student. He looked at me. We both just BURST OUT LAUGHING.

come on.

Naturally the kids were all curious as to what we were laughing at. We were right on the verge of going to lunch. I knew the kid would fill them in down in the cafeteria, so I let it go at that.

It was a funny day at work.

And The Winner Is....

2008-02-24T19:59:00.002-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, the simple truth of the matter is that I HATE the academy awards. I hate them for several reasons. Don't worry, I'll go into detail so as not to leave you in the dark.

Here are my reasons:

1. Fucking Jack Nicholson. I HATE that bastard. I mean, I really, really hate him. He is completely overrated and pompous, arrogant and jackassy. (yeah, I'm making up words now, what of it?) You might be asking why I associate Nicholson with the awards. Just stop and think about it. Watch the show for five minutes and you will realize that they pan in on this jerk in his front-row audience seat constantly. It drives me nuts. And he's always sitting there looking so smug. To top it all off, some idiot "star" has to get up there every year and feign humility in the face of receiving an award with the "amazing" Jack Nicholson looking on. It grows tiresome, really.

2. While I'm on the topic of feigned humility....
It drives me absolutely bonkers when the winner of whatever category (usually best actress, but it can be anything), has to get up and start weeping and pretending to be unworthy of even having been nominated in the same category as the other self-congratulatory asshole co-nominees. Usually its some young actress weeping over the fact that she could even be considered in the same category as some old broad like Judy Dench or some crap.

3. The acceptance speeches. Jesus, do these people even listen to themselves? Or are they contented with making us listen/suffer through their speeches?

4. The annual Cate Blanchett starring as the queen in some movie or the other. Seriously, that bitch is playing some queen (past, present, midieval, whatever) every single year.

5. Stupid host jokes.

6. The fact that the show takes 8 hours to complete.

7. The worst thing of all is the stupid lifetime acheivement award. They get some Hollywood denizen to stand up there and blow steam about some complete washup for hours on end. Then everybody stands up in thunderous applause, once again feigning humility in the presence of whatever boob is being honored.

8. The post-broadcast fashion wrap up shows.

CRAP!!

Gotts go watch the show so I have something to bitch about.

February Vacation

2008-02-21T14:50:00.003-05:00

Once again, I'm blogging from a PC, so there will be no picture today.

I am in the tail end of my February vacation. I cannot believe that it is already Thursday afternoon. Where has the time gone?

Nothing terribly interesting has been going on this week. I moved into my friends' house yesterday for ten days to take care of their cats and dog. I am no stranger to this gig. I have put in several tours of animal care for these peeps over the past couple of years. It is always nice to be around here because they live close to my gym and a bunch of neat coffee shops and stuff. I enjoy it. Plus, they have laundry right in the basement and there's no competing with laundry-jacking jackass neighbors! Lovely.

Other than some recent gym drama, I have nothing to report. But I will report on the gym drama.

I take a step aerobics class every saturday morning. It is a GREAT class. It is totally worth the effort of getting up to take a 6:30 bus to Harvard Square and then walking 15 minutes to the gym. Claudia, the instructor, takes us through an amazing workout! The problem is that the class is so freakin' crowded all the time. Actually, that really isn't the entirety of the problem. You see, if everybody gets their ass in the studio by 8:00 AM, we can all move around and make accomodations for everybody to fit and have sufficient room. The problem is that every week, like clockwork, the same inconsiderate jerks come to class ten to fifteen minutes late. They interrupt everybody when they walk over to get their equipment out, and then they set up shop right on top of some poor member who has to stop her own workout to make space for the late arriving offender. Often they end up pushing somebody (mostly ME) so far into a corner or so far against a wall that we can't even move safely. The worst part is that the jerks who show up late are often the "big kickers" whose moves are so huge that they have everybody around them cowering in fear of taking a boot to the head. It sucks.

This has been going on every Saturday since I joined the gym years ago. The annoying thing is that they "ticket" all the other popular classes so as to avoid this exact problem. But they refuse to ticket the step class.

Two weeks ago, in sheer frustration, I wrote a total poison pen email to the director of the club, in which I outlined all of the above concerns. Of course, every time I made mention of the latecomers, I referred to them in all caps as INCONSIDERATE JERKS!!

Anyway, I get this response in which they blame the instructor and say, "We aren't sure if ticketing the class would work, so we're not going to try."

I sent yet another poison pen taking them down a few pegs for blaming the instructor for something that the gym should be supervising. I also critisized them for refusing to try something that might help alleviate the problem.

Naturally I sent the emails from my own account and signed my own name to them. They all know who I am, and I wasn't cowering in the shadows of anonymity. Screw that. The funny thing is that the managers are all being all nice to me now, and they've decided to ticket the class after all.

Basically, I let it be known that for $91 dollars a month, their refusal to do anything about this problem, and endanger members in the process, constitutes an unacceptable level of customer service in my book.

So, there's my gym crusade.

Oh, and here's another little gym tale.

Today I was lifting weights at around 8. There was nobody there. Not a soul. The entire stretching area was empty and I was the only one in free weights for a while. Then another member showed up. I presumed she was there to lift weights, too. I was wrong. She was actually there in the free weight area to stretch, do abs, and do pushups. Whatever, right? Well, the crazy thing was that she decided to do all of these things right there in front of the free weight rack. So, needless to say, every time I needed a different weight, I was forced to walk around her or lean over her. And she kept getting pissed. Finally she said, "Do you think you could just take all the weights you'll need for your workout so that you don't have to keep interrupting me?" (Sounds shocking, I know, but this IS Cambridge.) To which I replied, "Do you think you could do your stretching in the stretching area so that you don't have to interrupt my lifting routine?" Of course she got mad. Remember, this is Cambridge, and everybody's world ends at the tip of their own nose. Convenient.

Anyway, hardly an interesting post, but still, at least it was procrastination time from my paper correcting.

Trumped!

2008-02-18T09:33:00.002-05:00

I'm writing on my mom's PC, and I have no idea how to install a picture on this thing, but pictures are just aesthetics, and I find this issue pressing enough to write about without the aesthetics.

We need to talk about the Trump Show. We REALLY need to talk about the Trump Show.

In a word, it sucks. I know people panned last season, but seriously, that was award winning television compared to what's taking place this season.

These so-called celebrities are a bunch of losers, and Trump is totally pussyfooting around them.

Two weeks ago, there was a two hour episode on. I missed it for whatever reason. I was all bummed out to miss the show, but was relieved by the fact that I could catch it online the next day. So, I hunkered down in front of my Mac and tuned into the sure-to-be-nailbiting two hour episode. I was psyched.

It turned out to be a massive letdown. The show dragged on for two hours, only to conclude with the resignation of the guy from the Sopranos. It was idiotic because the guy had infiltrated the other team, and was then accusing his own teammates of being "rats" and he claimed to be fearing for his life. Puh-leez. As if freakin' Stephen Baldwin was going to be out there putting a hit on the guy.

Anyway, nobody even got canned and I thought it was so bogus that they made this a two hour episode.

I tuned back in this past week because, for some reason, I can't NOT tune in. Again, total disappointment.

This past week, Omorosa was working on the same team as her arch rival, Piers. They were at each other constantly. For the entire duration of the episode, she was really digging in her claws, making cheap pot shots at him about his poor relationship with his kids or whatever.

At the end, the Omorosa team, which had been so dirisive throughout the show, won the task. Trump dismissed that team, and was heavyhearted at the prospect of firing somebody from the losing team. They had worked together so well.

And in the end, he decided not to fire anybody.

Come on, Trump. These people might be "celebrities" but you don't have to creep around them. Christ, they are E list celebs, at best. You have more clout than them!!!

Whatever. I'm feeling Trumped by Trump.

I will tune in again this week, but if I don't see a good old fashioned blood bath of a firing, I'm never watching again.

Christ!!

2008-02-13T20:36:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we had parent conferences at school. By contract, we are only supposed to have contract for a two hour period. Somehow, the conferences were scheduled for 2.5 hours. So, OK, we decided to overlook that. We didn't want to make a big union federal case out of it, so we let it go, sucked it up and decided to just deal with the longer conference period.

The things started at 2:45 and were meant to last until 5:15. At around 4:15, the fire alarm went off. Within a few seconds, the principal came over the intercom and announced that we should all vacate and take our things with us as it was not clear if we would be able to reenter the building.

So, we all got our crap and headed outside into the 20 degree temperatures.

And there we waited. And waited. And waited. Some parents were still there and they came over to chat in the school yard. At that point, what are you going to do? So, naturally we spoke with those parents who were still there and had been waiting.

All the while we're thinking that the principal is surely going to come around and tell us to get going, leave the school and get out of the frigid cold. But this dismissal never came. And there we stood. At one point, I was trying to talk with a parent and these kids were zipping through us on scooters and shit. It was really ridiculous.

So, not only did we have thirty extra minutes of meetings, but then we were forced to conduct the entire last hour of conferences outdoors. Even the teachers who had nobody to see them were stuck standing there in the arctic temperatures.

And the really horrible thing is that there must be some architectural property of the school that makes the school yard this barren, windswept expanse. And yesterday was really, really windy. It absolutely sucked.

So, there we stood, in the well-below freezing temperatures, for an entire hour having parent conferences.

Insane, right?

But here's my point.

Teachers are the only professionals that would be expected to put up with this crap.

Think about it....

If I were a teller in a bank and an extended fire alarm kept us out of a building for an hour, would my boss really make me take a calculator and a strong box of cash outside and conduct transactions in the parking lot?

If I were working at Target as a cashier, would they make me take a cash box outside and continue selling merchandise in the parking lot?

If I were a receptionist, would they give me a cell phone and make me take calls and messages outside in a freezing parking lot?

No, of course not.

And yet...as teachers, we're expected to just shut our mouths and put up with it. Hey, at least when we are in school, we do have heat. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that for the past few winters, we've had NO HEAT in school.

And there again, we're teachers, the scum on the bottom of the professional pond.

Case in Point....Never Remake a Classic Movie

2008-02-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm sitting here correcting papers, and the Johnny Depp "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is on network television. I was kind of excited to see it advertised, because I'd never seen it. And I LOVE the Gene Wilder original version. Who didn't?

Can I just say that in spite of my broad vocabulary and gift of hyperbole, I don't think I can find the words to express just what CRAP this movie is. Jesus, it stinks. The actors suck. The music is terrible. Every single scene has been one letdown after the other.

I am going to turn it off. I can't even stand it anymore. Why did anybody think it necessary to "F" with the original film?

Exhausted.

2008-02-06T18:42:00.000-05:00

Last night I had meeting number 2 of my 13-week-long course at UMass Boston (pictured above).

The course meets from 7-9:30 PM. A nightmare for me, who am normally in bed by that ungodly late hour of the evening. Last week, being the first week, the instructor let us leave at around 8:45. That was a delightful surprise. She even proposed that we consider meeting from 6-8:30 instead. I was psyched, but didn't get my hopes up. Just as well. When we arrived at class last night, the instructor informed us that the class would have to meet at 7 as regularly scheduled. I was a little disappointed, but I knew going into the thing that the class would go until 9:30. I had made peace with that.

I kept holding out hope that she might offer us the chance to skip the break (because she HAD to be planning on giving us a break, right), and just leave a little earlier than 9:30. Maybe 9:10 or something. Hey, its still late, but I'll take any minute earlier that I can.

Well, I was in for a not-so-delightful surprise when I went to class last night.

We NEVER got a break. We worked right on through the entire 2.5 hour period. At around 9, the instructor gave us a 15 minute period of time to collaborate with a partner. She told us that starting at 9:15, each of the 7 groups would have two minutes to present their findings. I smelled disaster right from the word go. Come on, 7 groups in 15 minutes. If you don't know teachers, then you don't know that we're TALKERS! Myself included. There was no way in hell we were getting through all 7 presentations in 15 minutes. The timeframe was blown out of the water as soon as the first group took the floor. They spoke for 12 minutes!!! That left 3 minutes for the remaining 6 groups. Do you see where this is going? I was in group 2, and believe me when I tell you, I held the floor for maybe 25 seconds. I hoped the other groups would cop on. No such luck. Long story longer, we wound up in the classroom until freakin' 9:45.

Jesus, as if I have nothing better to do with my time.

And this the thing...

This woman is there teaching me how to teach, but she has no grasp of time management or regulating discussion flow. Jesus, I was observed by my principal last week and she commended me many times on my excellent classroom management skills. Christ, I should take over the class at UMass. I can tell you this right now....nobody would be in that room a second beyond 9:30. And we'd have a break, too. Fo' sho!!

Whatever.

Today was a half day for kids, so I should have been able to spend some quality time working on report cards, which are coming out Friday. However, one of the two million committees I'm on met from 12-2:30. We then had a full school professional development meeting that lasted until almost 5, our longest one yet.

Again, bad timing all around!!

The Perfect Kid

2008-01-30T20:08:00.000-05:00

I have the PERFECT kid in my class this year. I had him last year, too, and that's when I realized that he was an amazing kid. I naturally hand picked him to be in my homeroom for this year when I moved up to a grade 8 homeroom. I didn't have the pleasure of having in my homeroom when I taught grade 7 last year, so I figured it was only appropriate that I have him this year.

I normally refer to the kid as DF because those are his initials. I don't call him that to his face. When speaking with him directly, I call him by his lovely given name. It is in referring to him out of his company that I call him DF. Normally the context is something like this, "My god, once our DF graduates on to the high school, who the hell will take his place?"

He's perfect. He's super duper smart and hard working, he's nice to the other kids, he's as handsome as they come, he's sooo nice to the other kids, he's athletic and he is completely unassuming and modest about all that he has going for him.

Today he asked me if he could stay after school to work with his partner on their Power Point presentation. Naturally I said he could. He then asked me if he could ask one of the girls in the 8th grade class to come and help him with the finer aspects of power point. He isn't the most gifted computer person. (I guess everybody, even DF, has their weaknesses.) The great thing was that he asked the girl who is probably the most academically limited kid in the class (but she's pretty good with Power Point) if she could help him. Naturally the girl was totally flattered to be asked by the by far smartest kid in the class, for her help. She was glowing.

They were with me until almost 5:00 this evening and I had a great time with them.

But here's the thing....

DF's parents are extremely young, maybe even younger than me. They are divorced and they are bitterly angry at each other. They spend a majority of their time with the kids trash talking each other. DF has spoken with me at length about how this stresses him out and really hurts him.

Yesterday was one such day. DF came to school very late and parked himself in the therapy chair next to my desk to talk with me about what was going on. It was pretty heavy.

He is usually so pleasant, but yesterday he was pretty out of sorts. When he went to lunch, he seemed particularly disjointed.

Anyway, our lunch period is just under 30 minutes. With about 5 minutes remaining in the lunch shift, I went across the hall to use the faculty restroom in the main office. The sight that greeted me upon entrance to the office shocked me. There was my perfect DF sitting in the "I'm in trouble and waiting to be busted by the principal chair." I literally rubbed my eyes and tried to refocus. I simply could not believe that DF, of all kids, would be sitting there.

When he saw me in a state of shock, he looked so totally embarrassed. He spilled the beans and told me that he had been loud in the cafeteria and when the janitor told him to knock it off, he totally lost touch with his normal perfect DF self and told the guy, "Get the fuck out of my face."

I was SHOCKED!! He immediately apologized for repeating the thing to me, but quickly added that he knows he can talk to me about stuff like that. Before I could say anything to him, he totally started beating himself up. "I cant' believe I lost control of myself like that. I was so rude to the janitor. This is totally unacceptable. Even if I'm upset I just can't speak to people that way...." All the perfect DF stuff.

I sat there quiet for a moment, looking for the right thing to say to the fallen-from-grace DF. Finally he broke the silence with, "Well, Ms. B., so much for the DF pedestal, right?"

I wasn't even aware of his awareness of the fact that I have him on a total pedestal. But I didn't miss the opportunity. I said, "Nope, no way." I explained that although he had totally screwed up, he could at least take credit for totally owning what he did, realizing that it was dead wrong, and resigning himself to the trouble that was about to come his way.

When the principal showed up, she was equally shocked by what she heard. She let DF off the hook because she knows he is the perfect kid who even handles his imperfections the perfect way. She spoke at length with him about what happened, but she understood that he had just been stressed out and that he was mature enough to take responsibility for what he did.

Today, he came to school with a lengthy apology note to the janitor, (and this kid is an amazing writer) complete with his father's and mother's phone numbers just in case the janitor wanted to call his parents and speak to them about what had happened.

Even the janitor said, "Christ, I almost feel like apologizing to the kid!"

Anyway, I'm just saying that there are a lot of complaints forthcoming from me about the increasingly difficult job teaching has become. But then you get a kid like DF. And it is all worth it. Of course, I know this is THE one DF I will really have in my career. Sure, there will be good kids in the future. Lots of them. But there'll only ever be on DF, and he's in my class for anther 5 months. I'm going to enjoy it while I can!