Apathy Lounge

Panic In Needle Park: Finals Week

 

Mr. Half and I ducked out this evening...first to deliver a couple of loaves of homemade Challah as Hanukkah gifts for some elderly neighbors and then to begin our depressingly tardy Christmas shopping, something which I started on Saturday but am nowhere near finished with enough to quell the random seizures of bowel-gripping terror over our present state of disorganization.

Once again, I call upon the gods of retail to have pity on us. Not so much for financial reasons, although such mercy would be awesomely awesome. But...for the timing of the gift-procurement, which will have to click along like those falling domino installations you see on television. Quickly and efficiently. Or else.

The Barnes & Noble we visited was crammed with bag and book-laden college students who were all hunched over notebooks with cups of cold Starbucks. They looked feverish. Some focused more than others. You could smell their fear. At one table there were two girls studying psychology of some kind because they were drilling each other on notes  they had taken regarding multiple personality disorder and psychosis. One girl was all, "Dude, I can't believe I'll be getting up for my next test in a little over twelve hours from now".

I wanted to go over and tell them to chill and that hey, dudes,...just go with the flow it would all be okay and, believe it or not, life would most likely bring along some even heavier times worries far greater than the ones that were harshing their groove they were presently facing. And then I realized that, not only should I mind my own beeswax, but that this particular message couldn't possibly make them feel better.  Not now anyway. I mean, why go all Ghost of Christmas Future on them tonight when life would eventually slap them upside the head with that particular reality when they least expected it.

Because not only could I remember back all those years ago to how I felt at their age, but I'm presently reliving it all as my oldest sons prepare to walk the plank during their own collegiate Finals Week.  I'm so in tune with what they're up against that I swear I can (from almost 200 miles away) hear the rapid thudding of their hearts and the sense of utter futility as tiny scraps of indecipherable last-minute information knock at the cast iron door of their exhausted brains long about 3 a.m at the Sterling C. Evans Library.

Yeah...been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt.

In other words...I've yet to escape the foggy-brained despair that comes from an ass-load of sleep deprivation combined with a sugar high because I traded BEING a student for WORKING WITH students and then raising them in a little side business I like to call MOTHERHOOD.

Two days ago I celebrated my twenty-something or other graduation from college. Maybe not so much celebrated as acknowledged with something akin to stunned amazement over how much time has flown by since that afternoon. Holy hell...where did all those wrinkles come from? A lot has happened to that girl in the black robe and mortarboard in that time.

I became a teacher, left the classroom, became a wife and a mother and then a writer...and then a teacher again. I traded working for helicopter parents who micromanaged the lives of their children... for trampy parents who bitch about having to pick up their criminally-prone offspring from detention because they're late for work and they "gotta be on the pole in fifteen minutes!"

I could be stretching the truth about that last bit.

Or not.

All of this to say that life has its seasons and that there's a thread of similarity in all of it that allows for perspective.  And my life's similarity happens to be panic. At least I'm consistent. It's like a new mother who hears the sad cry of a stranger's baby in the grocery store. I've been there, too, and flooded many a nursing bra with the liquid evidence of my instant empathy. Tonight was no different and though my own present worries dog me in ways (mostly) large and small...I was able to stop for a moment and remember when the thought of passing a test could tip my universe in the direction of permanent sunshine.

I said a tiny prayer for those kids there in front of me...and then sent another off to the two who will be coming home soon. It couldn't hurt.

Somewhere the Baby Jesus is Crying

This is precisely why I don't put livestock (real or fabricated) in my front yard. Ultimately, they will commence to doing what comes naturally...either of their own accord or at the helpful hands of nearby college students who need an amusing break before finals.

If this was a movie, you'd be able to observe that the...uh...male of the group is revolving his animatronic head back and forth in slow-motion ecstasy. Clearly, the poor female was caught unawares by her "man" as she attempted to graze peacefully during what had previously been a quiet moment alone. Typical. All men bucks  are animals. The only thing missing is Barry White disguised as one of the Magi singing songs about reindeer romance.  

As is, the tableau is already disturbing, given the third "onlooker" casually munching on frozen grass nearby.  Oh, the shame! He's either startled or aroused. It's so hard to tell without a light meter. What was I doing there taking pictures, you ask?

Research, internets. It was just neighborhood research.

Neither rain, nor sleet nor gloom of night....

It snowed on my way to work today. Big, fat flakes of sleety snow mixed with rain that fell on my windshield as I drove in the dark warmth of my car. Snow in December is a rarity where I live and so it was especially meaningful when it fell as my mixed CD kicked into Dean Martin's "Let It Snow".

I thought about what this would normally mean for a school day in the neighborhood where we live and where our children attended elementary school. It meant overly concerned parents who thought twice about treacherous roads and I confess that, for a moment, I was dreaming about the possibility of sparse attendance so that I could--for once in my life--pull a Discovery Channel video off the classroom computer and show the rest of the series where scientist geeks use Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints for the machine gun, the armored tank and the catapult.  At least then I could catch up on some grading at the back of the darkened room.

And yes... it's educationally relevant, despite the stereotypical notion that teachers routinely use video as a lazy fallback lesson when they're not particularly feeling the love, as it were.  We're two stories into a study of the biography genre and we start reading a story about da Vinci tomorrow. I thought it might help since only one of my students had even heard of da Vinci.

Or Italy.

Or the Mona Lisa.

Or Bronze sculpture.

Yes, it's very damned frustrating sad. But as my bad luck would have it, parents in the 'hood send their kids to school r-e-g-a-r-d-l-e-s-s of the weather. Twister's a' coming? They'll be there. Ditto for flood, nuclear attack or plague of locusts.  They send them when they have fever and Pink Eye. Or if they've had inadequate sleep due to mandatory attendance at Grandma's pool tournament at the nearby bowling alley. Whether or not they have the proper (or any) materials.  They may come late and--despite the snow--without a coat, but BY GOD they'll come stumbling in...reeking of their parents' four-pack-a-day habit and wearing the same dirty shirt they were wearing for the three previous days.

And yet Mom is sporting brand new orthodontia and is driving a new Explorer.

Anyway.

The following are exerpts from the day's events:

ME: Okay class...the answer to question #3 is 150 million.

STUDENT: Is 150 okay?

ME: No, it has to be 150 million.

STUDENT: Why?

ME: Because you're subtracting 65 million from 215 million. Your answer also has to have a million after it.

STUDENT: Why?

ME: Because there's big difference between 150,000,000 and 150, that's why. One of them is right and the other one isn't.

STUDENT: But I put down 150.

ME: Well then...it's wrong.

___________

ME: The answer to the question "Where would you find the city of London"....is England.

STUDENT: I put France. Is that okay?

__________

ME: So...what made Richard Owens qualified to help an artist like Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins build a dinosaur skeleton?

STUDENT: He counted the ribs.

ME: No, that's not exactly the answer I was looking for. We're looking for the reason Owens was qualified to know about dinosaurs.

STUDENT: Well...the book says he counted carefully to make sure all the bones were there.

ME: It also says something else. I could count ribs carefully, but how could I possibly know if they were all there? I don't study dinosaurs. Who knew enough to help Hawkins? What did he know that could help?

STUDENT: He knew about animals?

ME: Yes, but knowing about animals and knowing about dinosaurs are two different things. WHAT MAKES HIM AN EXPERT...sorry...an expert? An expert enough to advise an artist about how to best put a dinosaur skeleton together?

STUDENT: (................)

ME: A SCIENTIST!! HE WAS A SCIENTIST!!!

STUDENT: I have paleontologist. Is that okay?

_________________

Unfortunately, the only alcohol allowed in the classroom is hand sanitizer. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm waiting for a day when things really start to drive me beyond the edge of reason. Something tells me we're getting close.

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE...PASSIVE AGGRESSION. EVERYWHERE YOU GO!

In between Thankgiving afternoon when you're digesting that dump truck-load of dressing and mashed potatoes and (24-hours later) trying not to die during a road rage incident involving Black Friday bargain shoppers, citizens around these parts are expected to begin hauling out the Christmas lights in order to festoon their abodes so as to increase their visibility from low-flying aircraft. Because nothing says "Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus" like the threat of having your home gutted because something went afoul with your holiday display, though we like to push past the pain of that threat because it serves to throw a little gasoline on the already flammable excitement that is the holiday season. And if your house is still standing and uncharred come December 26? Well...there's your Christmas Miracle, my friends!

I can report with great confidence that such an endeavor has begun here at the Lounge. Begun...and then promptly stalled out. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Every year Mr. Half carefully coils each strand of house lights into its own little family and lovingly places them  inside a tightly sealed barrel where they stay snug and dry until the next November. As of right now there are many, many such coiled strands all over our driveway where they spent a night exposed to the elements and generally becoming acclimated to the unpredictable December weather that we experience here in North Texas. (Ex: Two nights ago it was somewhat chilly. Today has been positively balmy. Tomorrow promises storms, wind and a big, frosty cold front.)

Given that we hosted the T-Day meal at our house, that might normally lead one to assume we had a bit of a head start in getting those lights up and operational, but Mr. Half's out-of-t0wn brother (and his family) decided to invade stop by for their traditional --and frequently painful--holiday visit wherein they sit stiffly on our sofa and pretend to make polite tea party conversation. Good manners usually prevent me from whipping out a stopwatch to mark the moment when we run out of things to say to each other, though it is always grievously soon.

I'll segue here to regurgitate a little retro television dialog where one day Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry said thoughtfully, "I wish we had a psychiatrist in town. Barney (Fife) would be a real study."

Because that's how I feel about my brother-in-law and his wife and I would need more space than this blog provides to express exactly what it is about the two of them that chaps my ass more thoroughly than a pair of coconut fiber pants.

Is it the passive-aggression? The smug self-satisfaction? The knowing looks they continually exchange with each other in front of your face right after you've said ANYTHING that they view as daft or just wrong, the result being that the speaker automatically feels daft AND wrong. Or maybe it's just the  judgy remarks they slip into everyday conversation that sound innocent enough until the real meaning sinks in after it's too late for a snappy retort. And I'm all about the snappy retorts.

They have two children. A young son with Aspergers and a younger daughter whom they mostly ignore, so busy are they in blurring the stark contrast between their socially awkward son and their intelligent-but-not-autistic daughter. So intent are they in convincing us that their son is more brilliant than he is odd that it borders on the comical...were it also not so very sad. And the sad would be much more worthy of compassion if it weren't for the fact that they include my children (and all their other nieces and nephews) in that group of humans who, because their conversations aren't saturated with references-- ad nauseum-- to infinity and dwarf stars and String Theory and the New York Subway System, that they are all mouth-breathing bi-pedal mammals with walnut-sized brains and a mother who used too damn many hypens.

The easy answer is that it's just a dodge because life didn't turn out the way they thought that it should. Their search for the flawless (read: non-bourgeois) life of living together in New York City and being wildly hip and successful has given way to being married with two imperfect children, a mortgage and living in a too small house in a red state, one which they had previously escaped as fast as they could. Okay...I sort of understand their feelings on that last part. In short: a huge exercise in self-justification.

But still...

Imagine a living room of people all sitting on their hands, except for my sister-in-law who pages through my back issues of The New Yorker with a bored expression or lends her "expert" publisher's eye (she's not one...she just works for a small publishing house ) to one of our many books without speaking. Her husband and mine are disagreeing (as they are wont to do) about something really stupid. Yesterday it was the origins of the letter placement (QWERTY) on a typewriter keyboard. My attorney father-in-law was on the verge of implosion, being unable to find literary validation for his claim that "poke salad" was actually spelled POLK SALAD.  My 10-year old nephew, having recently decided he was a book collector, was busy asking my husband if he could take one of our antique books home as his own. My mother-in-law was working on a headache.

And then my sister-in-law spied a Malcolm Gladwell book on our shelves, reached out to pick it up with one hand and with the other pointed to the book and asked me,

"So have you read this book or did someone just give it to you"?

Is it just me or is that a funky way to ask someone a simple question? I'm a frackin' READING teacher, internets! I used to write for the P-A-P-E-R...about B-O-O-K-S! I...am not...an animal!

People, this is why I started drinking at 3:30. Can you honestly blame me?

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Greasing the Wheels of Thanksgiving With Can-Shaped Cranberry Sauce and Wine

The recipe books of my childhood were crammed with "off" looking photographs like this one. Today, they make me more nostalgic than hungry.

Typically, this is my favorite week of the year...the week of Thanksgiving. The kids who are still home get the week off and, thanks to my new job, so do I. The college kids make their way home as classes allow, though this year will be different in that one of mine won't be home at all. (I promised myself I wouldn't cry.)

With enough exams to choke a small horse and a paper to write, he's opted to use time alone in the apartment to study. Except for Thursday when he'll be one of 87,000 in the stands of Kyle Field as Texas A&M takes on the University of Texas (Dear Baby Jesus, Please let us win!). It's hard when a responsible attitude requires sacrificing a day of turkey and dressing and seeing the mother who labored mightily to give birth to your 9 pound self, but I'd prefer that the university invite him to come back next semester. The same goes for the oldest one who IS coming home, but he'll be spending his time here writing a ten-page paper which he has left until the last possible minute, so it won't all be fun and games while he's here. Like the guys at the Men's Warehouse, I guarantee it.

I can't tell you what a relief this week has been for me. No rising at 5am. No hasty gobbling of my Lean Cuisine in the teacher's lounge while simultaneously running off copies of a test and scheduling parent conferences for parents who mostly don't show up. No dragging into the house with nothing on the horizon for dinner and dishes still in the sink.

Instead, I'm walking/running or doing yoga every day...WHILE IT'S STILL DAYLIGHT OUTSIDE!! I've read two whole books so far, neither of which have anything to do with teaching inner-city children or those who don't speak English. I've had a couple of actual conversations with girlfriends that didn't have to be tacked onto the end of an already exhausting day. I bought curtains for the den and a new tablecloth for Thanksgiving and I've got plans to scour the house (with help from Mr. Half and the youngest boy) tomorrow.

We had a weekend to scoot down to College Station to visit the boys and take them (and their roommates) to dinner, see our team whip Baylor like a wicked stepchild, and then fill an astonishingly bare refrigerator with groceries. On the drive back I was thrilled that, even though the next day was Monday, it didn't involve work. Or even the day after that.

I feel almost...almost...human again. None of that, of course, makes up for my twelve day absence from this blog or yours. I even missed my own 4 year blogaversary. That's right, folks. I've been blogging at this site for FOUR YEARS. Time flies when you're struggling for something to say.

I could write you a sad tale about how busy things are, but you've heard it all before. Instead, I'll just tell you that part of last week was spent hanging Christmas lights in my classroom and watching my students ask a real cowboy questions about how cows give milk. Seems that one of the dairys in our state runs a little mobile gig where they bring a real cow to school and demonstrate how it is milked.  This is probably commonplace in some areas, but this is an inner-city school and there's an amazing amount of everyday information that my (and their families) students don't have. So while the kids were asking gross questions about  Angel the Cow and how she burps up cud into her mouth from one of her five stomachs, I was busy texting everyone I knew about a sign on the truck which, because a crucial part of the lettering was scratched off, read: "Milk: A Fart of Everything That's Good".

Even though am I smarter than a 5th grader, it would seem my sense of humor is at least as infantile as theirs.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

 

I Watch Televison Because I Care

During this last week, when I wasn't "treading paperwork" from the multitudinous forms to fill out, devising lesson plans, creating worksheets, grading papers and returning emails, I got sucked back to the year 1960.  Not because I was doing anything terribly important that year, because I really wasn't...unless you count learning to walk, growing hair and wetting my pants as something worth entering into the record books. 

And as fascinating as the prospect of those activities and my early months on earth as a carbon-based mammal must be for you to imagine, I should go ahead and tell you that they have nothing to do with why I haven't  bathed shaved my pits blogged in lo these many days.

I have to blame "Mad Men". 

I confess...I wasn't even the least bit interested in it when it first came out. I didn't read any of the articles about and I didn't care even a little bit about any of the Vanity Fair bit pieces concerning the characters portrayed in it. Or the actors. Jon Hamm with his perpetual 5 o'clock shadow and the visual perfection and lovely unmarked beauty--oh, the unfairness of Mother Nature!-- that is January Jones. Where is Tonya Harding when you need her?

But my sister, the one who got me hooked on Gilmore Girls after it had been on the air for five seasons, had been following the show from the time it aired and couldn't say enough great things about it. We don't agree on everything, but I have to give her props for introducing me to GG, given that it in no way mimics my life here at Camp Testosterone and I had sort of gotten used to all the camouflage and hunting paraphernalia. What a glorious summer it was catching up and watching five episodes in a row, followed by a post-mortem discussion with my pusher the sister who started it with her gateway drug by handing me Season One.

Lately, this same sister had been lamenting the lack of someone with whom she could discuss the cultural impact and superior storyline of "Mad Men" and after hearing her plaintive cry for the last year, I caved and bought the first season last Saturday, a day which will now live in infamy  as "The Lost Weekend".  And I've pretty much done nothing else since then.

Oh sure, there's the thrill of making classroom hanging charts and getting high off the smell of old school magic markers. But I'm pretty sure that's not how I'm going to muddle through through the pain of yet another lonely weekend  while the remaining men in my life are gone on a scout campout.

Season Two, a bottle of wine and a quiet (but filthy) house. It's not indulgent because I'm doing it for my sister. Because I care and because that's the kind of person I am. Thoughtful and focused. And possibly...obsessed. I'll let you know when I come up for air.

On Notice

My emotions of late have been a big...um...jagged. Predictably unpredictable in that I don't ever know WHEN the mood will strike, but when it does? It's a bad one. Just so you know.  

Past experience with this kind of intense feeling would normally have me thinking I was pregnant, since the early weeks of that particular condition always brought forth thoughts and impulses historically attributed to Lizzy Borden. Halloween is awesome, but I'm trying to set aside all my scary thoughts for the year, and I count a fourth child among them.  I had Mr. Half neutered at least a decade ago and any pregnancy at my age--a number that is none of your damn business--would indicate that anything growing inside me (other than an ulcer) at the present time would probably have five heads and  twice as many sets of teeth with which to chew its way out of my retired uterus.

So, my only logical alternative is to assume that this THING which has me in its merciless, iron grip is real menopause, since it appears that I have dashed past the stage known as "peri-menopause", which is code for :  "I'm too young to be a sufferer, but I feel like crap and my attitude is worse."  This is--obviously-- bad news for me, but  (and I can't stress this point enough) it bodes doubly unfortunate for the rest of you, especially those who work with me, live with me, or possibly look at me wrong cut in front of me in the grocery store line. Even the elderly are not safe.  I apologize in advance.

Nevertheless, here's some stuff that has bugged me of late and I thought I'd share, since...well...that's the kind of person I am. A bitch, yes...but a bitch who shares. You're welcome.

1) People who start a sentence with "I hate to ask you this, but..." Know what? If you hate  to do it...then don't. Save us both some trouble and aggravation.

2) Middle-aged (or younger...I'm not discriminating here) parents who crowd your door with a dozen of their children ( Respect my personal space, people, or as I like to call it these days...the Blood Circle) and expect me to smile indulgently when they hold out a pillowcase to accept a Hershey bar from me on Halloween. Seriously? If I had tried that while my own kids were little, they'd have filed a motion for emancipation long ago. Have a little self respect! I'm not handing out liver transplants, just chocolate! Back the hell off of my front porch. Slowly.

3) Healthy Choice Cafe' Steamers taste like ASS...and not at all delicious as suggested by Julia Louis Dreyfus and the bald guy on the commercial. Can you say R-E-C-A-L-L?

4) The girl performing my torturous manicure today, who decided to crank the electric buffer up to high speed and nearly ripped off the fleshy parts of my finger. You know...THE PARTS THAT AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE SHINY??? Or bleeding? When you see smoke, it's time to stop. Next time, why don't you just use a belt sander?

5) The manual for my ESL (English as a Second Language) class which insists that correcting the verbal mistakes of a student whose first language is not English will only result in retarding their interest in participating further during group discussions and that if I will just model the desired word usage, the student will eventually self-correct and everything will be  just great.  Au contraire, idiots.

I know people --and some are actually good friends-- educated people who continue to mispronounce words in my presence, even after I take  great pains to MODEL the way the word is supposed to be said and it hasn't changed a thing. Not a damn thing! Know why? NO ONE IS LISTENING TO ME! Sorry for shouting. Actually, I'm not sorry at all, but you know who should be? Everyone who says "lying" when they should be saying "laying" and vice versa. Also? It's not vicey versey or visa versa. It's vice versa , which is Latin for "the other way around". Look it up...and then start saying it the right way, or I won't be responsible for my actions.

6) Ditto for women  wearing tight jeans (Hookers, PTA Moms and Pamela Anderson...you're all on the list!) and  impossibly high-heeled "ho" shoes. Don't bother paying  Tim Gunn to tell you what you look like, because I'll tell you for free. Don't forget the women at Wal-Mart who wear  too-small terrycloth shorts when what they OUGHT to be wearing are shorts made from a TABLECLOTH. ALL of it! And while we're at it? Stop hitting your children with your own shoes. That's just gross.

Unless I can get my hands on some cat tranquilizers pretty quickly, Thanksgiving is going to be ugly. This has been a public service announcement. Save yourselves.

Rules of Social Engagement

One thing Facebook has taught me is that there are written and unwritten rules of social networking and forgetting to adhere to either one can have consequences.

First, there is the law up "upchaining". Since young people (anyone under 27) believe that Facebook-ing belongs to their generation and anyone older than them who participates is...well...gross, it's important to wait and allow someone young enough to be your child to "friend" you first. They can friend you, but only under rare circumstances do you ask them first.

Then, there's the notion that you can be funny or profane or profound or pedantic...but save the "Lifetime Channel For Women"/"ABC Afterschool Special" drama for another time. If your husband or boyfriend is beating the snot out of you, see a therapist or report it to the police. Or both. It should never be your Facebook status.

Those who are less experienced in the finer aspects of communication would do well to remember that a "wall post" is given that name for a very good reason: EVERYONE CAN SEE/READ WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN, GENIUS! My 75-year old aunt decided to friend me and then start talking a load of stark nonsense about football, and unless you've lived in Texas and graduated from a university whose sports teams used to belong to something known as the now-defunct Southwest Conference, this might not make as much sense to you as it could.  Despite the fact that she comes from a family where arguing is not only an art...but soon to be an Olympic event, I'm always surprised at how easily she skews away from a direct confrontation after she's declared her intent with some random and irrational point.

But last month took the cake. There is a woman with whom I graduated from high school. We were never friends...kind of in the way that non-enemy classmates are who don't come from the same kind of living situation. Maybe that sounds strange, but if you knew her, you'd know what I meant.

Glavis (not her name...but oh so close!) sent a note to all 126 of her Facebook friends (many of whom were classmates who were--like me--not really friends) asking for money so that her son could attend a non-required school trip to DC. I thought it was tacky to ask for money from people you've only seen once in 30 years, but that's just me. This, of course, after she dragged us through the saga of her third (and very abusive) whirlwind marriage and divorce to yet another one of our classmates.  If you're wondering, she's the one who posted about being thrown against the refrigerator door.

Not the kind of thing I would do.

After she posted the request for money, I received a written request in the mail for funds from her 14-year old son...a boy I've never ever met in my life. I thought it was nervy and strange. The kid wasn't escaping from the gulag and he wasn't homeless or scraping together donations for the Food Bank. He wanted to attend an optional week-long trip with some (not all) of his classmates and his mother, gave him my address.

I never intended to send him money...and I didn't. Our youngest son had a similar opportunity back when he was still in middle school. It was sponsored by the same company and was open only to kids who were taking Honors Aquatic Science. It was expensive...but the chance of a lifetime. We paid it out (OURSELVES) and he flew to Florida and had the time of his life. But we did it on our own and unless kindly grandparents with money to burn want to chip in...it's best to accomplish this feat solo.

Glavis apparently thought that the $1,750. was steep (and it was) and decided that asking former classmates for money was the best way to fund this gig...and Facebook was the best and most direct way to do it. A week later my curiosity could not be contained and I messaged her (privately) asking in two brief sentences why she was asking for money from someone she barely knew for someone I had never met.

Her response? She "unfriended" me. She never answered my question.

I know this says more about her than it does about me...but I just had to get the story down on paper a blog post.  What's your strangest Facebook experience?

Mixed Bag

As much as I'd like to say that I sat around all weekend in old yoga pants watching DVRd episodes of "My Monkey Baby" while washing down handfuls of kettle chips with a trough or two of pino grigio, I must report that nothing of the sort took place.

Instead, I left a hellish week of work and conferences with indifferent parents (three failing students and no one has called yet on their behalf) only to rise early again on Saturday for a six hour training session on how to grade/assess English proficiency exams for immigrant students. As fortune would have it, the high school where I was attending the seminar was very close to a mall and as much as I abhor going there (too many loitering teenagers who make me feel bad about my pregnancy-scarred body and general lack of youthful appeal), I bit the bullet and took the parking lot-entrance into Macy's to buy some new clothing...just because for work. 

So even though this seminar cost me six hours of my life I'll never get back, I did come away with three pair of pants, three blouses and a sweater. Don't have  heart attack, they were having a sale, though I didn't actually know this when I walked in. Still, I like to think it was the work of the fates who were compensating me for what promises to be a heartbreaking case of Deep-Vein Thrombosis after being held captive and seated in some incredibly uncomfortable library chairs.

This on top of last weekend's Saturday which was given over entirely to painting faces with the rest of my teaching team at a local carnival, the proceeds of which would go to raising money for our class trip to Austin. Because so many of our parents are lazy indisposed, the teachers ended up working the entire day in cold/damp weather. Our booth was sandwiched thoughtfully between the Jump House (OMG!) and the "Show Your Talent" stage, where local American Idol rejects performers regaled us with tone-deaf renditions of Michael Jackson hits. I mean where else can you watch a toothless woman sing Patsy Cline songs? There was also a "storyteller" who rambled on forever and whose sagas always involved people having conversations with Jesus, someone being frightened by a ghost and a little mild child abuse thrown in for good measure.

I prayed for a booth that featured alcohol, but there was none to be had.

Today was mostly spent at a Family Reunion of sorts that was cobbled together after various members of my husband's family were in town for the Texas/OU game. Despite the fact that both sides were represented (and more than a couple were attorneys), no blood was shed and people generally conducted themselves in a civilized manner, which is more than I can say for other families.  Our college-age sons made the 3-hour drive this  for the event and then turned around and drove back, which was above and beyond the call.

It felt strange and a little dreamlike to go back home and know that, though I had seen them, they never set foot in the house. Melancholy would have overtaken me if the weather hadn't been so crisp and wonderful. I made soup, cleaned a little and did my lesson plans while the youngest and Mr. Half worked hard to make sure the exterior of our home wasn't mistaken for a hobo day camp.

So now I'm writing this last-minute blog post so that I won't feel additional guilt about the part of my life that involves not blogging and posting a picture from the best part of today...the part where I got to hug all of my sons on the same day.  Toodles!

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Saying It...And Spraying It. Please Stand Back.

It was breezy, sunny and deliciously cool this morning...somewhere in the 50s. Perfect football weather. The kind of weather that makes you want to throw open the windows--I did-- and catch a whiff of whatever it is people are burning in their fireplaces, which of late has been pinon pine. Bright. Energizing. Autumn-colored flowers in pots next to perfectly rotund pumpkins in slightly varying shades of orange. Have I told you lately how much I dearly love pumpkins? How can one be unhappy when they're around to spread cheer and herald the falling of the leaves? The gathering of family. The baking of pies.

And it IS a happy time here at the Lounge, for the most part. For one because it's the weekend and I can finally log more than four-and-a-half or five hours of sleep a night. Also, because I get to see what my house looks like in daylight, which is more of a rarity than you might think. The raggedy odds and ends of the week finally get attended to. Bathrooms get cleaned, the towels come fresh from the dryer with the lingering scent of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day dryer sheets (Oh, basil...how I love thee!), floors get swept and I'm thinking about making a savory chicken soup for dinner tomorrow.

Oldest son came home last weekend and middle son is here now. Everyone in the house left during the mid-afternoon and I took a lovely walk, returning just in time to avoid a downpour. I spent a rainy hour in a clean, quiet house...reading a book and napping on the back sofa. I'm saving my lesson plans and grade-averaging until tomorrow. It was very nearly a perfect day, if you don't count that it's not over yet and my formerly undefeated alma mater is having its ass handed to it by Arkansas as I write this. But let's not go there just yet. The week was bad enough without concentrating on the negative.

Yet it's hard not to right this minute.

The father of one of my most impoverished students died this week and I have no clue as to how they will survive. Another student has taken to combing her hair over her face so as to hide the fact that someone in her home (and she doesn't know who) shaved off one half of each eyebrow as she slept. An enraged parent of another student hung up on me during the course of a phone conference about the fact that he's failing my class. She won't allow her son to take responsibility for his work and blames me entirely for the fact that he won't follow directions. She was rude and accusatory and loud...and then she hung up on me. After repeated entreaties, not one of the parents in my homeroom will join the PTA for $6 and only two have said they would help even a little bit at the school's Fall Festival. Another boy was suspended for exposing himself to some third-graders in the bathroom and on the day he returned from suspension, he made it exactly one day before being suspended again.

See? Just that one paragraph is like a dark cloud squatting over this otherwise positive post, but I'd like to point out that I write about things like that because--(okay...mostly) I'm WORRIED about those people. It's not because I HATE them. It's called venting and I try not to use this space for that kind of stuff...exclusively.  It's not that I don't enjoy a good gripefest where I hammer home a point about someone else's stupidity. Or talk about stuff I'm afraid of or am puzzled by. Every once in awhile it's rather cleansing. I admit that. Getting stuff off your chest is healthy, even, and allows you to see the forest for the trees.

But I'm puzzled by those who use blogging to spew their rancid dogma and their cocksure-but-misplaced superiority ALL OF THE TIME--albeit while misspelling crucial parts of the argument... what we in the Education trade like to call "high frequency words". Don't they know that it invalidates--to some degree--what they're saying, since it would appear to come from a dumbass the thought processes of an educated adult who can't  think to employ the computer's editing features?  I'm thinking of one person in particular right now. This would-be pundit/writer's worn-out prejudices and pedantic accusations that do nothing more than shine a spotlight on a goose-stepping mentality.  Nationalistic blindness fueled by Talk Radio maniacs that allows people like her/him to vomit poisonous hatred for anyone who disagrees  and call it patriotism...as long as one is waving the flag while doing it. The half-witted hysteria over the smallest thing. The unrelenting and often slanderous hatred of the current President. Or anyone in the media...unless he/she happens to be addicted to Oxycontin or have a framed photo of Hitler in his...or her office (I haven't forgotten you, Ann Coulter!).

I know a blogger like that. A rabidly insecure person who seems incapable of writing--or recogizing-- a happy thought unless it's about Fantasy Football and, even then, the words come across like a  hot slap in the face. A bitter, angry person who is threatened by mouthy women in public office, unless they're the kind who wear designer glasses and quit a job before it's finished.

This sometime blogger is part of that keening chorus of doomsayers who exploit the missteps of their targeted political enemies while excusing or even justifying the same mistakes that come from their own camp. The kind who marinate in rumor-mongering ( "It's on Snopes.com so it HAS to be right...OMG!!!") to incite fear amongst weaker minded compatriots.  Civil discourse can't unfold with this individual and any salient points I might make are responded to with a childish "Blah, blah, blah".  No, really. That's the response. It's the blogger equivalent of plugging one's ears with fingers and shouting, "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!"  My student--the one who keeps spelling his  own name wrong-- could come up with something better than that. Which is why I don't comment on that site anymore. I do, however, check in briefly now and then just to see how unfulfillment can turn a person's brain in on itself.

It's an odd and unexplainable comfort  that the actual hits on this blogger's site are so very sparse and the commenters are even fewer...when there are any at all.  Most featured diatribes bring forth a hearty ZERO in the comments department, which makes me wonder where the satisfaction lies in writing to yourself, since that's certainly what's going on there. 

And see...despite how good it felt to say the words that are situated just above the ones you're reading now, there's a dirty residue that lingers.  The kind of feeling that comes right after you verbally assassinate someone...even someone who definitely has it coming. The initial emotion is one of acute relief. It's heady and powerful and it makes your heart race. But it also makes you realize what you're capable of.  How easy it is to find yourself in the gutter of anti-rationalism. That you can--just like them-- stoop to dive head-first into the giant slopjar of  pessimism and intolerance and swim around. The righteous indignation feels right at first...and then it just starts to feel...well...reich.

I'm glad I can't do it all the time and I wonder about those who can and do. About those who thrive on it and make their shameful living by it...as well as those who believe they coulda-shoulda-woulda  been a contendah but--instead--faithfully record their toxic  yammerings for an invisible audience . My sweet husband likes to say that people like that probably didn't get enough hugs as a kid.

Me? I think they didn't get enough pumpkins.