I think I am allergic to high stakes testing

I hate STAR tests. Apparently I hate STAR testing so much they make me puke. Literally. I'm a drama queen who means business.

Puke in my classroom. In a bag. Behind the couch. I projectile vomit so hard that I feel a need to lie down on the tiles of my classroom floor. The same floor with 200 dirty disgusting shoes tromping all over it every day. The same floor that each evening is the Ballroom Dancehall of the Mice Stars, dragging their bums over it as they scamper to and fro, urinating and pooping as they go. The same floor that is so cool it's like heaven on my cheek between hurling and I cannot imagine a better surface for my face.

I hate STAR tests so much they make me, unable to contain myself, burst into a student boys' bathroom screaming, "I hope there are no boys here," because I cannot even make it up two floors to the faculty women's bathroom.

I hate STAR tests so much that I hurl steadily from 3:40pm - 9:45pm, with a break to have a student declare, "Er, you don't look so good. Maybe you should go home," as I lie down on a table in front of her doing make-up work and a colleague to say, "You really look like death. Are you sick?" as I clutch a wall on my way out, and another break to get myself home so I can spew all over my own house and lie on my shoe-free relatively clean floors.

I hate STAR tests so much that I end up at the ER with a suppository and a saline drip to hydrate me, all the while delusionally thinking I will be fine to work the next morning.

I hate STAR tests so much that I don't go to work the next day (the first day I have EVER called in sick to work for an actual illness, as opposed to needing a sub so I can take students on field trips or whatever. Seriously.)

Now, I hate the electric colors and teeth-grinding, sleep-depriving, manic-producing high fructose corn syrup booster of Gatorade almost as much as I hate STAR tests. But not as much as I hate that the substitute apparently left my room with youth in it and didn't return for a large portion of the day, leaving my poor, fabulous 17 year old intern to run everything, calling me every hour. So, in order from least to most, I hate Gatorade, flaky job-shirking substitutes, and STAR Testing.

That's how much I hate STAR testing.

The Poetry Class that Gets Drunk Together Stays Together

Which is just one good reason not to drink.

So our class today was held at our professor's house. And since I had jury duty, at which I was declared argumentative before being released, and a dentist appointment, in which I was declared in need of a filling before being released, I arrived an hour late. Swung open the door to the apartment that used to be my brother's (weirdly, they live in the same house, just ten years apart), and entered the twilight zone of the Drunken Poet Society, which, somehow, had yet to come to order. Drunken poets everywhere. Drunken poets eating couscous, pasta salad, jicama, and other off-white foods all together. Drunken poets staring at cheese wedges and declaring, "I am in love, I mean simply in love, with strange cheeses." Drunken poets lurching to their feet to read their pieces. Drunken poets slurring words as they read other people's pieces, drunken poets cutting chunks of carrot cake off with their arms, stuffing it in their mouth, then looking like forlorn chipmunks as they vaguely recall they hate carrot cake, drunken poets getting lost in a two bedroom flat, drunken poets declaring, "It's not because I am drunk, I swear," as they drunkenly read the part of a drunken bar goer in someone's dialogue poem. How delightful. Luckily, for all their boasting, these people are lightweights, and class, starting 1.5 hours late, ends 1 hour early. Nice. We should do this every week.

Big Bad Poetry Word of the Day

Abracadaver.

Well, that pretty much covers my night tonight, right?

I heart Deserts!

I heart deserts. OK, I also heart desserts, but only really sour ones involving the words: lemon, rhubarb, pie, square, berry, or mango. Oh and occasionally involving the words cheesecake, caramel, or mini madeline. Oh and that never involve the words float, chocolate, ice cream, cold, or high fructose corn syrup. But this is not about that.

This about deserts. I heart getting cold when it dips to 80 degrees at night. I heart coyotes at night. I heart funny looking trees and technicolor glowing sunsets and warm sunrises. I heart feeling vaguely dusty all day. I heart drinking water that goes in but never seems to come out.

I heart funnily decorated diners and fake cherries and whipped cream on margaritas and neighboring tables who between bites tell graphic stories about accidentally slicing off parts of their fingers while working in yards. I heart finding hidden fabulous Korean food and videostore personnel who've never heard of Shortbus and lifelong local trailer-community dwellers who live 25 miles from Joshua Tree and wonder if that is another trailer-community when asked for direction clarification.

I heart waking up to wind rattling everything and complaining about the heat and reading lazily all day. I heart that I still have to squint to see what is meant by "blooming."

I heart Joshua Tree wanderings, oasis findings, rock climbings, boulder sittings, dust nappying, accompanied by youth and adults I adore. And after some of that,

I heart clothing optional "resorts" (read: medium tepid and small hot pool, both warmed with minerals, and I don't mean the pee kind) accompanied by just adults (thanks) that I adore.

[I am less thrilled with the preponderance of mini-peni that hang out at the clothing option resorts, even tiny establishments, but this is not about tepid reality. This is about heart.]

And ten days of all that? I heart it. And it simply is not enough. Bless you, Spring Break.