Beginnings

There is something liberating about doing absolutely nothing all day. Just sitting on my patio with a book and a soda, watching my neighbors mow and trim and paint. I know they are all wondering why I'm not working on scraping and painting; they probably think I'm lazy. Quite frankly, My Dear... I feel that I have earned, yes EARNED this respite, and no one is going to make me feel bad. I just realized that the one-year anniversary of Joe's departure passed by without my noticing, so I am enjoying this solitude now. While I still harbor a LOT of anger about how he left (in the middle of the night), and the fact that he 'borrowed' a shitload of money beforehand, I feel so... relieved. It's sad that after five years, I have not missed him once: I have definitely missed his income, but not him, and not that fucking bird of his. My friend, Diana, was asking why we had stayed together for so long, and my explanation sounded so lame. He needed me. I did his laundry and fixed his meals. I arranged doctor's appointments and sent flowers to his mom for her birthday. I was his cheerleader, his maid, and the person who silently accepted all of the criticism and insults he wanted to hurl. Until one day... The Day I Yelled Back! He was completely unprepared for that- he thought that if he moved out, I would be lost and apologize for my behavior. Then he would move back, and things would go back to "normal". The only thing is, I didn't grovel, I calmly asked him to sign over the house to me (we had just bought it, and I made the first payment), told him I was keeping the dog, and wished him the best. Yes, my friends, I behaved in a relatively dignified manner, even arranging for my brother-in-law to help move the rest of his stuff out (of course, that was before I realized he was never going to pay me back). He went nuts when he realized that things were not following his plan: he has some emotional problems that he's supposed to take medication for, and I think he screwed up his meds (I wasn't there to set them out for him). The neighbors and police have kept a close eye on me, for which I'll always be grateful.

But now, my friends, I think it's time to move on. Time to meet new people, and DEFINITELY time to have sex again! I've gone on one date, with someone I met online. He was beautiful, but did things like use the word 'fuck' loudly in public. I mean, I can and do swear like a sailor, but not in front of strangers. It's called common courtesy. So, where exactly do I meet men? I know, I'll be starting a new job, but, quite frankly, most teachers are stuffy and boring (see post 'crack and gum'). Joe was the guy everyone thought I SHOULD like, and we see where that got me. Is it too much to ask for an intellectual tattooed biker that plays the drums? Someone with dredlocks who reads and has a social conscience? Maybe so, and that's ok. I think it's important to have an idea what you are looking for (intellectual, social conscience are prerequisites, while the dreds and the drums are just suggestions). In the meantime, friends, today is a day of celebration! Take a minute out of your life and smile. Smile because you didn't get stuck in traffic. Smile because you saw a cute baby. Or, if nothing else, smile because I am feeling finally feeling good about myself again.

Putting Out Brush Fires

To put your minds at ease: I saw Jake Friday and when I left, he seemed better. When I first arrived, he was so overwhelmed and unhappy that I wasn't sure what to say. However, after three hours of sometimes deep and sometimes goofy conversation, he was himself again; I was never so glad to hear someone make fun of my car in my life! I'm still worried about him, but I think he's gotten through another emotional crisis in his life, and I'm hoping that every hurdle he makes it over will help convince him that he can overcome all of his obstacles. By the time I left the park, I was emotionally drained- I wish someone had warned me that being an adult was going to be this damn hard!

I have a friend who is a school counselor. She is one of the people that I called when I was so desperate to help Jake. Her response to me was, "well, it sounds like you've done all you can, it's up to him now. If he's going to do it, then he's going to do it". I was stunned! this is a person who is trained to have compassion, and she basically told me there's nothing I can do. I know that she has had to distance herself from other people's problems to avoid being swamped with them, but WTF? How can you look at someone who is a product of their environment, and say, "tough break and good luck"? If that's what I'm supposed to do, I will never be a great teacher. I teach because I love my kids. They are so interesting and funny that even when I'm in a bad mood, I feel better being around them. I LOVE all of the creativity they put into trying to get out of homework! To me, THAT is a form of intelligence!

One of my students lost his grandmother last year. He comes from a large family, and I always felt like the grandma was the only one who noticed him. For two weeks afterward, he was missing assignments and he failed a quiz in my class. The other teachers just gave him an F and moved on. I couldn't do that. I asked him to stay after school, and we talked. He told me that he used to go to his grandma's after school, and she'd help him organize his homework and do it. So for a week, he came to my class after school and I showed him how to prioritize and helped him get started. After a little while, he was doing his work on his own again. My point being, if I had just let him "work it out", as our school counselor suggested, he would have failed my class, meaning he couldn't have passed 8th grade. Not only would he have lost someone he obviously loved, he would have felt like a failure, too. I am a teacher, and to me, that means not just teaching stuff written in a book, but also that every person deserves compassion and everyone has the potential to be successful. I realize that under the "No Child Left Behind" bullshit of the Bush Administration, humanity and compassion are not important, but I would rather lose my job because my students learned these lessons than keep it because they could memorize dates and theories.

Ups and Downs

I guess that by now, I should be used to the fact that life never hands you a golden egg without letting the goose shit on your head. Yesterday was a great day for me professionally; I GOT A JOB! In fact, I got THE job- the one I was so desperate for. I emailed everyone I know to give them the good news, and while I was online, I messaged a former student with whom I chat frequently. The first thing I noticed was that his Buddy Icon shows a girl kissing a gun, and says "I hate myself"... red flag. In talking with him, he was obviously very depressed. This is the kid with the incredibly screwed up homelife that I mentioned before. I finally asked him if he was considering suicide. He said he had tried it before, but he was "a pussy, and it hurt". I am still crying as I write this; he is SUCH a great kid; he's smart and funny, but he really got the shaft when God gave out families. Apparently, his mom found out about the previous attempts and, are you ready, SHE GROUNDED HIM! I called everyone I know, and even a few organizations who are supposed to be helpful in this, but was told that no one could really help. It seems that he falls through every minute crack in our system. I know that he is begging me to help him, but I don't know what to do. If I could, I would just drive up to their shack and tell his mom that I'm bringing him home, and I'll be back for his sister, too. I know that's not a real solution, but I am so torn up by this. I realize that as a "professional", I am supposed to maintain some distance from my students, but there are always a couple who really need to connect on a personal level with an adult, and I'm happy if I can help. I tried to talk to him today, but just got a couple of one-word answers out of him before he had to go. I'm going to be in the town he lives in on Friday and asked if he'd like to meet me in the park for lunch (I always meet the kids in a public place like that- too many sickos have made every teacher/student interaction seem sordid). I met him there a couple of weeks ago, and we had a great time. He said he would, so I'm hoping for the best.

Oftentimes, I think it's easier to withstand our own pain than that of someone we care for. I can't stand to watch someone I love suffer, especially when the situation is completely out of their control. One of my students wrote something once, she may have been copying song lyrics, I don't know. It said something about 'I wish I could shrink and climb through your skin to eat the pain that's destroying you.' I always thought that was really beautiful and haunting. Don't ever tell me that teenagers don't really think about anything.

Father's Day- Again?

Ok, I'm sitting here, mentally preparing for this year's Father's Day cookout at my crazy sister's house. If you don't know how much I look forward to spending time with my dad, read previous entry "Lost in Thought". Let me tell you about my sister: she's nuts. Like seriously, certifiably nuts. She has been taking her medication for a while, so I'm hopeful that there won't be a repeat of last year's Father's Day fiasco, but who knows? Oh, yeah, you weren't there; it went a little something like this:

I arrive with jello salad- the kind with mandarin oranges and kool whip in it. Everyone else is there, and Dad is drunk enough that he is trying to dance with my sister's 180 lb dog. Flashback to childhood humiliation, but at least sis has a privacy fence, so it's not so bad. I put the jello on the table, trying not to trip over another of her dogs; this one weighs about six ounces and looks like a mophead. I try to wish Dad happy Father's Day, and give him his gift (a hat: I always give him a hat because he wears them constantly). He proceeds to belch at me and mumble something that I take for a thank you, but may have been "fuck you", I don't know, and quite frankly, don't care. I talk to my nephew (the only sane member of my family), who was high as a kite and couldn't stop laughing at the scene before him. After tiring of his giggles, I ask Mom what time Dad started drinking, to which she replies (I'm so serious) "he's not that drunk, he's just in a really good mood". Meet my mother, the Queen of Denial.

All goes well for a while, my sister's half dozen dogs of varying sizes are running around, occasionally grabbing a hamburger off the grill and fighting each other over it. Finally, there are enough done with no dog spit on them to call dinnertime. We all sit down, and start passing stuff around, when we hear a snort from Dad's end of the table. He has fallen asleep directly in my bowl of jello. I wonder aloud if he will suffocate (notice no one WORRIES about this possibility), and bitch that I spent money on the jello, now no one wants to eat it. Finally, my mom pushes his head out of the bowl, and says, "it's not that bad, we can still eat it". (You can cringe here, I certainly did.) My sister chooses this moment to lose it. She begins screaming about how she has worked all day preparing this, and now Dad's gone and ruined it (surprise?). I hear my nephew laughing harder than ever, and look where he's pointing. The dogs have gathered around Dad, and are licking the jello off his face. At this point, I began lauging as hard as Eddie. So we're laughing so hard that he knocks his stepsister's milk over, which brings the attention of the rest of the dogs, and I am completely serious, they begin jumping on the table and eating! I was sitting there, listening to my sister screeching, my mom trying to wake up Dad, Eddie laughing so hard I thought he'd wet his pants while my brother-in-law and his daughter sat in one corner of the yard, eating chips they wrestled from the dogs. The whole time, I'm looking at the assend of some sort of Malamute mix who's eating the food off my plate, and thinking: I wonder sometimes if God is like a TV producer, and my family is some sort of demented sitcom?

This year, I'm not taking anything and I'm stopping at Taco Bell on the way- I'll hope for the best, but it's a good idea to be practical. Happy Father's Day!

This and That

My dog hates racists!! I've always known he was brilliant, but this impresses me to no end. I finally put two and two together yester day when he nearly tore this guy's leg off, and I noticed he had black combat boots with white laces (the guy, not the dog). Probably twenty people pass by here on foot every day, and Baxter may bark occasionally at one or two, but he never chases them. However, this guy was walking, and I saw Baxter begin running toward the road, ears back and fangs bared. I tried calling him, which usually works, but he kept going. The guy didn't appear too frightened (in spite of his own opinion, Baxter is not scary-looking). But, I have never seen him actually try to attack someone before, and it scared me. I was apologizing profusely when I noticed the laces in his boots and my skin began to crawl. The guy was very polite about it, but I kept thinking about the symbolism of those laces, and I reallized that the only people Baxter has really disliked since I got him are all racist in varying degrees. I have always suspected it, but now I know for a fact; some higher power matched Baxter and I up- we're meant to be a family!

I am feeling a little less self-pitying since my last post. Sorry, but I am an artsy-type, and we tend to be an emotional lot. Part of the change in my mood is that I went to a movie tonight. First of all, let me tell you- I LOVE MOVIES! Even when they suck, I love actually going to the movies. Probably some issues stemming from childhood (we probably only went to two or three movies the entire time I was growing up). Whatever the reason, just the act of going to the theater improves my mood. But, on top of that, the movie rocked! We saw The Terminal, with Tom Hanks. I know this looks like your typical date movie, but it's really not. It was hysterically funny, something I hadn't realized from the previews. It was also very sweet and touching (not the kind of sweet that makes you want to beat yourself in the head with a hammer, but nicely sweet). If you're wanting to see a film that will make you feel all happy inside, this is a great choice!

By the way, the name of the blog, Loser's Lounge, does not reflect my real feelings about myself. When I was in college, there was a really popular bar called something like the Winner's Circle. All of the trendy people went there, so as you can imagine, I avoided it like the plague. My friends and I discovered this awful little hole-in-the-wall dive, dirty pool tables and good music on the jukebox (no rap or dance music allowed). All of the regulars referred to it as "Loser's Lounge" to acknowledge the difference from the Winner's Circle. We were proud of it, and, to the owner's dismay, several of us had t-shirts printed up! Anyway, that was a challenging period in my life, but Loser's Lounge was where I could always find someone who cared how I was doing, even if I had just met them ten minutes before! These were real people who understood that my life didn't center around Mommy and Daddy paying for my education and new car. In fact, they respected me more because of it. So, please don't feel that I'm really thinking of myself as a total loser, and I certainly don't think you're a loser for spending some time here- it's nice to have the company!

Ok, the universe is trying to tell me something... "UP YOURS"! At the interview yesterday, he told me that it really came down to two of us, and he'd call the person he wanted to offer the job to today. Well, I was here all day, and the fucking phone never rang! So, I guess I'm supposed to take some comfort in the fact that I'm second best. I wish they wouldn't get my fucking hopes up if they're not certain that I'm going to get the job. I just want to cry. Kevin, my neighbor's son, came over to help getting the house ready to paint, and asked if I'd heard from any of the schools I've interviewed with. I told him no, and sang a few bars of "Loser". He looked at me, all serious, and said, "You're not the loser. They're losers if they don't hire you". (This is the moment you say "AWWWW"). I told you, he's a great kid. Job hunting is, next to allowing myself to be set up on a blind date, the most degrading thing I will ever do. I just thank God I don't have kids: how could I tell them it's important to get a college education, when I was able to find work much more easily before I got one? Now, I can't even get a job at the gas station! I need chocolate.

Blah Blah Blah

I had another interview today. It went well; you know, no drooling or inappropriate scratching on my part. That's all I'm going to say, because I really don't want to get my hopes up.

Normally, I am not an overly violent person. However, I promise you that if the hillbillies down the road do not stop revving the engine on that crappy truck, I'm going to turn the neighborhood into a Quentin Tarrantino movie. Every afternoon, the two greasy fat guys take off their shirts and begin working on something that was once a pickup truck, but is now a rusty pile of shit. They do this while about a half dozen tiny, dirty kids pedal up and down the road on their tiny, dirty bikes. Now, my dad is (was?) a mechanic, and I have no problem with people working on old cars. I don't even care what it looks like. What I object to is the constant "RRRRRRRR, sputter", "RRRRRRRRRRRRRR, sputter". This has been going on since early April. I would say it's time to call the coroner and pull the sheet over the patient.

The tiny, dirty neighbor kids are terrified of me. I kept getting ants in my mailbox, and couldn't figure out why. The mailman said that sometimes he finds food in there. So, one day, I was sitting on my patio when I see the kids on their bikes stopped in front of my mailbox (we're rural, so the box is at the road, several yards from the house). I watch as one of them starts to put a half-eaten apple in my mailbox. I yelled something about calling the postal authorities, and that being a felony (amazing how they recognized THAT word). Well, they all took off as fast as their filthy little feet would pedal, leaving the tiniest, dirtiest little girl behind. This kid couldn't have been more than four years old; she still had training wheels on her bike. She was pumping those pedals furiously, and looking over her shoulder like the flying monkeys were after her. Just as she got to the top of the hill, her feet slipped, and she rolled back down, right next to where I was now standing. I used my scariest "teacher voice" and said, "don't ever do that again, do you understand?" Her eyes were as big as dinner plates, and she nodded, then pedalled away again. They haven't bothered my mailbox since.

This is just a thought: we should teach IM as a language in school. I was talking to one of my former students online the other night, and I laughed at how annoyed some of my collegues would be by the conversation. "Student: sup... Me: nm u... Student: sk8d 2day... Me: kewl": you get the picture. Can you imagine if someone from fifty years ago saw that, they would think it was either a foreign language, or two crazy people who couldn't type. Just something that struck me.

Lost in thought

I have to begin by giving you a little background: my dad is a drunk. He's not the cute, "Otis the town drunk" kind of drunk: he's the asshole at the bar that you want to pass out and shut the fuck up. So I have to call his house to ask a question, and he's faced. This is always the moment of truth; do I just make quick small talk and get off the phone, or do I try to get something intelligent out of him? I know- you are saying, "get off the phone, dumbass", and that is what the smart person would do. However, I seem to always hold out the hope that somewhere in the pickled recesses of his mind, my dad is still there, waiting to help me. You can see where this is going. I ask my question, and he begins to rant and babble incoherently. When I ask him what he said, he asks me why I'm tying up my phone lines when I'm expecting a call about a job. I try to explain that it's after five, and human resources has gone home, which sets him off on another tangent. I say goodbye and hang up. When will I stop feeling like an eight year old and face up to the fact that the dad I remember is dead, and this bitter, mean old man has taken his place? It's really strange that occasionally I will run into someone who used to work with him, and they'll talk about how funny he is. They always talk about what a great guy he was to work with, and I wonder if we're talking about the same person. It seems like so often, we give the best of ourselves to strangers, and save the worst for those that we're supposed to love.

My neighbor's 14 year-old son has been helping me scrape and paint my house. He's a great kid, and has become like a little brother, so when I saw him last night, I could tell something was wrong. His girlfriend broke up with him. He's trying to act like it's no big deal, but I can see in his eyes that he's hurt. I want to offer some pearls of wisdom, but what can I say that will make it feel better? I know many people who will say, "he's 14; he'll forget about it next week", but I don't think that's true. We all remember the first person who dumped us. The pain of it may lessen, but you never really forget. I think that your first dumping may be the first big hit that your ego takes, and afterward, whenever someone rejects you, you revert back to that moment when someone broke up with you for the first time. Emotionally, you BECOME 13 or 14 years old again, and you are devastated, even if you didn't like the person who's dumping you that much. As I struggle to find something comforting to say to him, all that comes out is, "do you want a Mountain Dew"? That's why I don't teach first grade- I'm not very good with the touchy-feel-good kind of crap. He drank the soda and we sat on the patio in silence, swatting mosquitoes. Eventually, he got up to leave, and said, "thanks, I feel better". I guess sometimes, all we need is a soda and someone to sit with.

Stress

Ok, I am incredibly stressed about the job interview last Friday. I left there feeling really good about my performance, but now I'm second and third guessing myself. I have a huge knot in my stomach the size of my head (including hair), and I just made the worst coffee ever. This did not stop me from drinking it; hey, coffee is coffee. The thing is, I really, really, REALLY want this job. This is a strictly urban district with over seventy percent of students living at or below the poverty level. But, the district is working hard to make improvements; they are trying new approaches, and they are making headway. I want to be a part of that. I know that if they don't offer me a job, I should still be proud that I was one of the few to score an interview, but it doesn't make the rejection any easier. Tom Petty was soooo right when he said "the waiting is the hardest part".

My friend, Diana, got a job about an hour north of here. She will be moving next month. I will miss her desperately; she is my only friend who doesn't have a baby or is pregnant. I am thrilled that she found a job (as previously mentioned, teaching jobs are scarce thanks to our current regime), but I don't want her to go. We went through the WORST student teaching experience together, and we are like soldiers who bond in the trenches. If it hadn't been for her, I don't know if I could have made it through that awful ordeal. We would go to Ned Kelley's every Friday afternoon for a skillet cookie. The thought of that cookie is all that got me through some weeks. She is the only person who can understand why I want this job so badly. She is the most together person I have every known; really comfortable in her own skin. She transmits a feeling of calm to everyone around her. She would be so embarrassed to know that I wrote that about her!

Fourteen

Do you remember what it was like to be 14? To feel every emotion like an ice pick to the brain? To know, absolutely know, that no one in the history of the human race had ever felt the feelings you are feeling right now? Sometimes I miss that. Passion is such an intangible; like a wisp of cologne that teases you for a second then floats away. Fourteen is such an amazing age: the emotional fragility balanced by the perceived physical invulnerability. I watch them now, skateboarding up and over my porch, and I think how brave they are. These boys who stare at the ground and blush burgundy when a 14-year old girl is nearby have no fear of flying through the air and trying to land on a moving skateboard.

I envy them. They have so many wonderful things ahead of them. I also pity them; life will sucker punch them, girls will break their hearts, and sometimes, they will fall off the skateboard. I wish I could tell them these things, prepare them, but I know they will not understand. They will think I am old and don’t remember what it was like to be fourteen. They will laugh at my warnings like they laugh at the “No Skateboarding” signs in parking lots. Only when they are older and see fourteen year olds skating will they remember what I said. When they are nursing a broken heart and they sometimes feel the pain from an old injury, only then will they understand my words and wish they had listened.

Then it will be too late, and they will be sad because of it. They will try to pass on the warnings I gave them, but it will be the same. Why is it, when we need the most help, we are the least willing to accept it?

So, I'm eating breakfast this morning when the phone rings. Looking at the caller ID, I put on my most chipper, "I didn't just drag my hung-over ass out of bed ten minutes ago" voice and answer it. It's the woman from human resources in the school district that I really, repeat REALLY want to work. She seems taken aback and slightly annoyed, so I tone the chipperness down a little. We chat, and she asks me to send an email requesting to be considered for a particular position! I take this as a good sign, and comply. About an hour later, I get a phone call from the principal of one of the middle schools in the district. I revive the perky voice, which doesn't seem to bother him. We chat,and believe it or not, I actually say some intelligent, relevant things. He seems to be pleased with our conversation, and asks me if I could come in TOMORROW for an interview! Ok, I know I have the reputation of worrying if I'm given too much time before something like this; however, this is just not enough time to worry. I have to prepare mentally, and I do that by imagining the worst possible scenario repeatedly. Yes, I realize how nuts that sounds, but then, when I walk in without tripping, I can relax.

I have worked all day on my portfolio, and have been trying to get a website up and running. This will give the impression that I have been spending all of this free time in constructive ways (instead of dating Jose Quervo). Well, the portfolio is done, and looks pretty good. However, I am really pissed, because after five hours of working on this website, I can't get it to link together. I am tired and grumpy, and extremely sweaty. I don't understand how it can get HOTTER after it rains, but it seems to. Anyway, I call a couple of people who are computer genius's (is that a word?), but they are not home. So, I have decided I will casually mention that I have torn my website apart in an effort to update it. That sounds efficient, right?

I just talked to my friend Cameron; she had her baby on my birthday! She is quite possibly the nicest person I have ever met, and she deserves the happiness she is feeling right now!

They Like Me; They REALLY Like Me

Yesterday was my birthday. I am not happy about my birthday. I don't mention this because I am looking for sympathy; I just want to offer the basic knowledge that I have never, repeat NEVER had a fun or happy birthday in my life. I always hope that some day, someone will realize that it is a big deal to me, and do something special (not elaborate, mind you, a baloon that I wasn't expecting would suffice). So, I talked to my mom, who forgot to tell me happy birthday. Two of my friends called and said it, which was nice, but expected. However, while chatting online with one of my former students, he told me happy birthday. In capitol letters. I cried. This kid has a seriously fucked up home life, a lot of anger management issues, and very little empathy for others. Yet, he remembered my birthday and told me; it meant more than anything of monetary value ever could. That, my friends, is what I love about teaching.

I also got some good news yesterday; I have a job interview. I am not delusional enough to believe that I will get this job (way too many unemployed teachers with more experience than I have live in this area), but the fact that someone is giving me an interview is now cause for celebration! Also, today I received a call from another district wanting to set up an interview, so we are now playing phone tag.

One final thought: I hate mosquitoes. I've been working outside for the past couple of days, and I have so many bug bites that my toes look like Snausages! (I realize that if I would wear shoes like normal people, this would not be a problem, but I don't like shoes) Now, the truck that sprays harmful chemicals designed to kill mosquitoes and anything else in its path went by last night, but it doesn't seem to have done much but make them mad. I only mention this because it is only June- by the end of summer, my fingers may be too swollen to type!

Everyone in my life sucks

My best friend called this morning. We talked for forty minutes- well, WE talked is stretching it... she talked to her baby for over twelve (I timed it- that's the kind of asshole thing I do). Now, it's not that I don't like babies, or don't like this one in particular, I think he's great. It's just that I wish people with kids would realize that NO ONE LIKES YOUR FUCKING KID AS MUCH AS YOU DO!!! No one else cares that he can now grunt something resembling "mama" (and to be honest, it doesn't really sound like that, but I wanted her to shut up so I said that it did). After the twelve minute babble-session, then twenty minutes of her talking ABOUT him- what he's been eating, how many teeth he has, some new smile he makes- she actually said to me, "I don't know how you could miss teaching junior high, by the end of the day I'd think you would be craving intelligent conversation". *Eyebrow raises* How exactly am I supposed to respond to that? I swear to god, if she sends me a picture of him on the crapper when he's potty-training, I'm going to send her one of me in the same position!

I had to go to my uncle's funeral this week. Boy, if you're feeling down about yourself, THAT is not the place to be. Let's start off with the twenty-seven times I was asked if I had found a job yet- always in that pitying, sucks-to-be-you tone of voice. After that are the questions about if I've found a new boyfriend yet (obviously not, or I wouldn't be facing you bastards alone), and aren't I worried about becoming a "spinster"? (well, I wasn't before, but thanks for giving me one more thing to feel insecure about!) Oh, and let's not forget the bitchy old aunt who actually said to me, "you aren't getting any younger, you know, you should stop being so difficult and settle down. After all, you don't have that many reproductive years left"! What exactly IS the correct response, because a mumbled "fuck you" as I was walking away really pissed off my mom. I mean, this woman can tell me that my ovaries are shrivelling as we speak, and I'm supposed to smile and thank her for her concern? Why don't I just hand her a broomstick and bend over, too???

Crack and Gum

So, I'm surfing the net, when I discover blogs- possibly mankind's greatest invention! I can rant and ramble, and pretend like people are paying attention--- it will be just like my eighth grade U.S. History classes! I miss teaching. The kids are so friggin funny; actually, if I could spend all my day with them, and none with the other teachers, I'd be a happy fucking camper! It's not that I don't like the other teachers, but they're so boring! No wonder kids start doing drugs- God, after an eight-hour inservice with them, I'm looking to score some crack my own self! I do not condone crack, mind you. In fact, I don't understand why anyone wants to take drugs to make themselves MORE hyper and paranoid!

I guess the problem with other teachers lies in the fact that they're all grown-ups. I hate grown-ups- you know what I mean... they have no sense of humor, everything is so damn serious all the time. And, God forbid the kids have fun, or act their ages-- these people were ready to crucify one kid because he always chewed gum! I am not kidding- CHEWED GUM!! The group of six teachers held a special meeting to discuss how best to punish him. Let me tell you, that was NOT the time to say "what's the big deal?" (I guess I should tell you, as if you couldn't figure it out, I was teaching in a small, rural school.) However, I had previously worked in larger, slightly more urban schools, where you were expected to keep an eye out for weapons, so gum is not a top priority! But, anyway, these six adults spent the better part of twenty minutes discussing punishments. Eventually, they settled on a Saturday detention, where he would be expected to scrub the desks and chairs throughout the entire junior high! So, on the last day of school, I gave him a pack of gum and said "enjoy"! Fuck em, they aren't employing me next fall, what do I care?