True to form, my yearly theme starts in October

In keeping with my omnipresent ability to chug on forward, 2009 has already moved to 2010 in my mind. Which makes me almost half-way through the year! Yeay! My enthusiasm for being done with this year is tempered only by my intense level of fatigue. Working Title 2010: Year of Imbalance (not to be confused with In Balance, of course)... j'arrive.

For a lesson plan I was doing, I remade my Medicine Wheel. And it served its purpose in deflating me completely. Because My Medicine Wheel? Only not TOTALLY out of balance because I was basically nurturing none of the four areas -- Heart, Mind, Spirit, Body. And I do mean none. Zip. Zero. Everything that I need to do to be in my best place, I was not doing. Don't get to chill with the friends I adore nearly enough (meaning: at all), don't get to read or write on this blog, don't avoid bread and dairy like I should, haven't played soccer since September, don't get to be not working on the sunny days in order to soak up my Vitamin D... The list goes on. So the only one remotely getting attention was a spoke on my Heart area. And that was only because I made the hopeful leap (read: mistake) of putting The Boiler (a.k.a. The Turtle, Salty Dog, My Piece of Mat) on it.

So I come back from my camping trip to the very lovely but cold Hendy Woods and voilá, The Turtle pokes his emotional head out enough to call it quits. Why? He finds things to be out of balance between us -- i.e. he sees me as being more into it than he is. Which I think is true, but perhaps not in the way he perceives this. But then again, he must profoundly not be into it, because, as many of you know, I have spent a tremendous amount of time on the fence about the concept of a relationship and my very mixed feelings about him and me in particular. I only moved to calling him boyfriiiiiiiiiend this fall when things seemed solid enough to say to myself,

Giiiiiiiiiiirl, you gotta either open it up and really attempt this or be done.

[My Inner Jew Editor responds: Whatdja think, your patience, tranquility, positivity, and generosity alone were gonna make something like a relationship actually work out for YOU?! Ha!"]

And more to the point, I have to now remake my stupid medicine wheel and notice how almost entirely absent the entire wheel's contents are now. And I have got to stop settling for the imbalance of putting myself out there and sticking with folks who either cannot or are not interested in giving back. As Animal says in The Muppet Movie:

Irritated!

So I am taking a vote. Preferences?

A. 2010: Year of Imbalance
B. 2010: Absence of Zen
C: 2010: Like a Pebble in My Shoe
D. 2010: _______________________

Sometimes OK Cupid is Not So OK...

I think OK Cupid is a little drunk on his own misguided power.

So I checked my datin' profile after many a month just to sweep out the cobwebs and found four messages that ALL started with references to Burning Man. I always read profiles before reading notes and found each profile alluded to wanting to find life partners with whom they could grow old at Burning Man. (I can imagine Burning Man rapidly aging me within a week, actually. But I digress.) Seems strange to receive so many Burner messages but I just figure that post B-M, the Burners are out to replenish themselves and fulfill their intentions and manifestations and all that. So I come to the last messenger's note. I notice that on his profile he has gone out of his way to write that he wonders why everyone OkCupid thinks he'd be a match with Burners since he has never been. Curious.

Then I read his message title: Burning Man

And the message:

I said I'm confused about why OkC thinks I'd be a match for everyone who goes to Burning Man.

So, what does the new "Icebreaker" thing do? It matches me to you because you "like Burning Man". Hilarious.

Under his message is this little double-decker marshmallow-esque ice cube-ish icon with a little heart on its chest. Next to it is the italicized sentence:

I think you both like burning man.

And I wonder: Were OK Cupid and I in the same room?! Because in my profile, when prompted to disclose "the most private thing I am willing to admit here" I wrote:

I have a tic: when I hear the term Burning Man, my eyes roll... all by themselves. Strange.

Suitor #4 is right. That is hilarious.

Valencia Street: The Oh My of the I-ron-y

It was mayhem on Valencia Street this afternoon well into the evening, with San Francisco showing its true colors of equal parts concern and self-absorbic irony.

Valencia Street off 19th was filming Trauma, apparently some new show that is based in San Francisco. I have no idea if it is a "reality" show, but if it is, I am gonna assume the episode's trauma involves a car running over a bicyclist, a boy getting stabbed on a MUNI without working surveillance cameras (no wait, that is seemingly weirdly prohibited north of Mission Street), or some BiRite Creamery eater cracked out on the toxic levels of sugar in their Salted Caramel ice cream starting a restaurant riot because some menu lacks sufficient vegan options...

Meanwhile, Valencia between 16th and 17th was also shut down for an actual trauma, in the form of a jumper the po-po were trying to talk down - apparently, they were still trying to around 9:20pm. True to form, at both locations were gawkers saying stupid inappropriate shit and taking cell phone pictures. And in both locations were people totally irritated that they couldn't get to their preferred happy hour drinking establishment/cafe in a timely manner. One-dress-stop-shopping Valencia Quarter, how nauseating.

Student Quote of the Week

Another reason to miss teaching elementary school:

In one corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Kevin. Kevin has the disposition of an old man who might hang out in A Streetcar Named Desire but is trapped in a second grader who looks like a generalizable second grader would, whatever that means.

In the other corner we have Carlos. Carlos is Captain of Future Pro Wrestlers of America trapped in the body and mind of a second grader trapped in a size and shape more typical of a kindergartner, whatever that means. In keeping with his profession, Carlos interacts with other second graders by flying into them from out of nowhere and attempting to pin them to the ground. He is very kinesthetic. Some would call him spirited. Others might say he is very Lucha Libre. Carlos consistently talks in a WWF voice a la Hulk Hogan and does that creepy pulsing flex-curl-arm-pose in front of him like some retro Arnie Schwarzenegger to pop his ghost pecs while gnashing his teeth and shaking his head rapidly side to side. Raise your hand if you can visualize this. Hoganito only refers to himself in the third person. More specifically, as Thor. I refer to Thor as WWF.

Ding! Round One.

Kevin is brought to teacher, howling with the eye tears of only a second grader:

Miss, he (puffy second-grader accusatory finger point) punched me in my gut!

WWF growls back, gritted teeth:

He punched Thor in his emotions first!

Ding! Back to their corners. Let's all commend WWF on his superb use of the term emotions. Referee, wanna take it from here?

Grrrrrrr.....

My school district is reportedly quite concerned with the GPA of our students and their subsequent graduation (or not) from our high schools (and more specifically, how these numbers reflect on our our district... but please don't get me started). They would probably be more concerned about this issue for middle and elementary schools, too, if not for the beauteous reality here known as social promotion. So what if someone has a 0.0 GPA in three years of 6th grade. Pass summer school following "8th grade" and we'll send them to high school. Nice. Anyways, one of the cornerstones of our district keeping on top of how folks are doing is the frequency of our grading cycle.

Which means that every six weeks I cry and mutter and drag myself through giving grades.

This past year, our district elected to force all of us to put our grading on-line. Which would be fantastic even for the paranoid and ludditic among us, I am sure, if they would just choose a program that had been tested, tried, and basically as bug-free as our current, more individual ways of doing it. Fundamentally speaking, a program that worked. Is that so much to ask? I am sure they made such a brilliant move into the not-quite-competent future to increase everyone's ability to see a student's progress-- the student, their parent/guardian, teachers, etc. Only a cynic would suggest this was done primarily to allow administrators to put their noses in my grade book whenever they want without ever actually setting foot in my classroom. (I get a nice little alert every time they peek. Sweet.)

So this grading term, I had to say good-bye to my tried and true grading program/system, refined over the last ten years, and say hello to a small form of purgatory known as the almost-working district system. Fortunately, I am a wary enough sort that before entering grades into the program, I recorded every single one of them on paper. Like... old system + new system = two systems full of time.

Having passed through our first grading period in this Brave New World, I, like Prince's advisors, have renamed this ritual. Formerly known as Grades, they shall now be known as Grrrrrrrrrr.

Why?

Because our grades were to be submitted through the program by 3pm on Friday.

On Thursday, at 8pm, I sat in bed, lap top as an electric blanket, inputting the last of the marks into the system that would hopefully add them up correctly and spit out a grade for the period in question.

I saved every three minutes or so because the program makes a habit of "de-recording" scores during certain times (though when those times will be is decidedly less certain). Around 11pm, I start getting pop-up messages alerting me to save my work, since the program is fixing to shut down momentarily for a "fifteen minute" upgrade. Highly convenient, that. This pop-up message came onto my screen approximately every ten seconds, resulting in a complete inability to save anything. Slightly even less convenient.

So I logged off. Took 20 minutes and one shower off. Tried to log on.

Error message.

Took another 30 minutes off. Tried to log on to the following message:

Dear Program Member:

The Program is currently performing scheduled maintenance on your school's web site. Account logins and certain other activities are
unavailable during this period. Today's maintenance (9 Aug 2009) is
scheduled through 4:00pm PDT, but may complete sooner. Please check
back.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this upgrade.

Thanks.

The Program Team

So let me just recap here. 1. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrs are due at 3pm on Friday. 2. The system will be down until 4pm on Friday.

That is just awesome.
And so I did what all responsible teachers would do. I wrote one nasty venting note to my Assistant Principal and went to sleep. 1:30am.

Later (5am) Friday morning I got up, tried to log on to nothing, sent snarky text messages to some dear ones, and figured I should go to work to 1. get chewed out for not getting grrrrrrrs in on time and 2. do the grrrrrrrrs the way I had previously done them, which of course would take me at least seven hours, since I had to re-add up and then bubble everything. Oh and 3. teach classes.

All of this reasoning left me standing at 6am in front of this MUNI bus stop sign:


And I admit it. It was not my finest hour. I was inspired to raise a finger in toast and yell the following at this particular campaign:

Fuck you. Our bell doesn't currently fucking ring until 3:35pm. So fuck you, nimrods.

Ahem. Adjust tie. Smooth down hair. Board bus. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

9,000 Signs That I Should Start Blogging Again

Here's three:

1. I can tell an insanity producing year when I see one, even if I am kinda slow.

2. Today I barked at my principal. Literally.

I was standing in front of the master schedule, trying to figure something out. In walks BB Lizardo (my attempt to call my principal by their initials has succeeded in making them only marginally more tolerable in my eyes). BB looks around in a quintessentially lizardo way, and licks hir lips nervously, as I am the only one there. And then faces me and states: Who let the dogs out?

Me: Arf. (Seriously)

BB Lizzy: (Smiles while eyes rivet to escape door)

Not enough to convince you this is going to be a weird year? Fine. Read on:

3. So I go to an organizing meeting. At which, despite the racing around of children, we are very organized. Weird in and of itself. And I get out to the world to find a voice mail from some guy whose name is ... let's say Pedro. And he launches into this whole thing in medio-spanglish about some health clinic near my work and can I call him back at whatever number blah blah blah. His number isn't in my phone and I cannot imagine who the guy is. Sure, his voice sounds vaguely familiar. I know like three guys named Pedro; some of whom I think more highly of than others, but I am still surprised any of them are leaving me messages with such familiar tones. So I call him back. He asks how I am - I reply quickly and ask him to basically get on to whatever he needs from me. We talk a while and maybe 15 minutes after we hang up it occurs to me that perhaps this? This is perhaps an ex-bf of mine... from probably four years ago max? For like a year or so? And I have to LOOK up his name to recall if his first name had been Pedro.

Can we say: Sarah knows how to MOVE ON.

Come on... now let's all say it together.

Arf.

Reason Number 3549 to Love and Fear San Francisco

As many of you know, it is a life goal of mine to keep the locally-owned and operated Balboa Theater running strong through the sheer frequency of my patronage. I will go see anything there. Even things I am totally disinterested in seeing.

Awesome. So that is the caveat.

I heard a rumor that on Sundays, one could see the film Julie and Julia there for free if you brought a cake with you. Seemed harmless enough. I baked brownies.

Yes, they had the same argument that you all just brought forth:

Do brownies qualify as cake?

After some discussion, the staff consensus was:

They do.

Phew. So they denuded me of my Tupperware of brownies and ushered me into the movie.

At 11:30pm last night I exited the theater to find this:



Yes, for those of you who cannot squint sufficiently to see anything on my absolutely terrible camera phone, it was tables filled with slices of cake and cake products. For everyone at the theater. Or on the street. Or wherever.

And we ate hella cake. Rum cake, mocha cake, lemon cake, indeterminable taste cake, velvet cake... I ate much more sugar than I normally should even eat at ... say... 1pm, much less at almost midnight.

And then I peeled myself away for home. But the staff pleaded:

Take as much cake as possible in your Tupperware. We do not want waste!

And as I am a fan of being waste-free, I complied. I boarded the 31 MUNI at close to midnight with cake. Hella cake(s). And I learned something about San Francisco MUNI passengers as I walked up and down its aisles offering cake to everyone...

There are shocking amounts of people in San Francisco who are willing to take pre-cut, clearly homemade pieces of cake from an obviously sugar-cracked-out wild eyed grinning stranger who points and says,

Ooooh, would you like some cake? How's about that one? I think it is rum-soaked... that one I believe is coconut-chocolate... Ooooooh, you are so welcome!

And between the patrons of the Sunday Night 31 Balboa and the 22 Fillmore, now at close to 1am, I got off the bus for my home with Tupperware tucked under my arm, having moved all the cake into random strangers' gullets. Reason Number 3549 to Love and Fear San Francisco and our particular sense of what is reasonable to offer and receive.

Baby, We Were Born To Ruuuuuuuuuun....

Let’s imagine we were subjected to the ice-breaker If You really Knew Me, You’d Know…. If that happened, I would have to come up with something less obvious then the following: I have a tic. The tic? At the mere suggestion of jogging my face sets into the same expression people wear while jogging (and that ain't ecstasy, folx).

Let’s be real, we could be subjected to the diluted tepid-water breaker: Even Before You Knew My Name, You’d Know… and you would still already know the following: Even when looking to try something new that is bold enough to cover the whole summer, I should avoid signing up for any kind of multi-session fitness class, particularly one that revolves around running.

And so it will come as no surprise to you who even slightly know me that, in keeping with my both disturbed and disturbing need to try new things each month (and preferably sign up for things that I already know I am going to hate), I signed up for a “Running/ Fitness Camp” for teachers. It was a moment of pure madness, a.k.a. the last week of school. Five days. End of June. 6-8pm. Feel free to blame SFUSD for even suggesting it.

The company? Windswept Fitness. An apt name, since we met at the Polo Fields (which they might want to modernize into the name Summer Tundras) at 6pm. Not that we could see each other through the windy fog. Windswept Fitness? Terrible. An utter waste of time, talent, and money. They are high on my list of companies I do not recommend. It is possible I am just not their target audience, since everyone else played thrilled with the week. I mean, I got through, but it was far from pretty.

Because the experience really represented everything I don’t like:
* Groups filled with other teachers
* Organized sheep mentality
* Working out
* Sarcasm and lack of attention to detail
* Running
* Trainers who appear to know less about health or their audience than I do
* People who are constantly trying to sell you shit and
* Wasteful “gift bags” of lots of paper fliers, soft plastic bike water bottles and silly red t-shirts.

So I went the first day and positively despised it. Why go back? If you have that question, get in line behind every single person who knows me me even slightly and asked me that. My answer:

Well, I already paid for it, damn it. So I am going. And I want to see if I truly hate running as much as I think I do.

But I finally realized on Friday night at 8:15pm, when I was free of them the last time, that my answer to y'all is somewhat incomplete.

I always think of myself as having been a weak, nonathletic kid. I was teeny-tiny and possessed very few muscles. And I was deeply shy. I was always picked last for class “teams.” I'm not kidding. I was one of those picked-with-audible-sighs-because in-the-70s-no-one-could-be-left-out picks when I was little. I remember one time being so gravely embarrassed that I alone could not successfully swim between two points (that were not very far from each other) that I hid in shame after trying and failing that test that day. I must’ve been super-wee at that point.

Showing that everything happens for a reason, this week has caused to me to remember that my self-perception has a gap.

For a spell and once upon a time, back when I was even shorter than I am today (at least by second grade - for those of you who are quantifiers), I loved loved loved running.

And, over time, I became good at it. I came to be the fastest sprinter in my class. I was faster than all the girls. I was faster than all the boys. If there were any little intersex kids in our class, I was faster than them, too. I was even faster than the boy I had a friend-crush on: John Clay. And even though I was faster than he was, he still liked me back. It is possible he just saw me as one of the guys, but I was such an innocent in that way, I wouldn’t have consciously understood any of those dynamics. We were good friends and maybe in that funny second-grade way, we liked each other, too. But one thing I know. I was the fastest sprinter in the class. I was great at something, and, more importantly, I felt free.

At some point, a guy transferred into our class. That was probably fourth grade. He was from Japan. I wish I could remember his name. I want to say it was Tomiko, though I don’t know why. He was really fast. He was legendary. And I couldn't beat him, though we went neck and neck for a while. I heard he liked me. I didn't get the feeling that anyone ever would like me. My friends were all having moments of going steady. But not me. And he was nice enough and interesting and different. So I liked him and I liked racing him. Being the fickle fourth grader I was, I transferred my John Clay friend-crush to him. We were friends and friendly. He showed a lot of respect for me. I congratulated him when he beat me. It was all in fun. I felt so free. And then, one day, in front of the whole K-6 grade, I beat squarely beat him in a sprint.

He stopped talking to me. For the rest of the year.

I continued to beat his scores, but he refused speak to me. John Clay (who, in retrospect, was a wise person and a friend) explained that Tomiko was hurt because a girl had beat him. Still totally sheltered, I had no idea what he was going on about. I continued to beat Tomiko because I still loved running. I continued to try to talk to him because I still liked him. And he continued to avoid talking to me. Until fifth grade, which was my last year at that school.

We came back from the summer. We had an obstacle course tournament. I was picked for a team pretty close to the beginning because I could win races. Tomiko was picked by the other team. We raced. He won. I was congratulated for being the fastest girl. Some adult at that school, perhaps the PE teacher or someone, told me not to be disappointed; our bodies were changing and so boys would beat me from then on. I could remain the fastest girl perhaps, but it wasn't realistic to think I could be the fastest runner in the class.

Leaving the tournament, as I passed by an "alley" between two trailers that constituted school classrooms, Tomiko's hand reached out and nabbed me by the wrist. He pulled me into the walkway. I remember how his cheeks were flushed sunset red. I congratulated him and he held out his hand and congratulated me enthusiastically. He was very friendly, his eyes were bright and beaming, he was smiling so widely. He pulled my face into his face. I couldn't see around it. He kissed my cheek. He then ran off. I stood still, stunned. He was speaking to me again, and he was again the fastest runner. And Tomiko kept winning. Although I didn't mention the whole Tomiko alleyway thing, I remember being upset about the whole tournament thing enough that my mom found out about it and, trying to make me feel better, assured me that athletics were not important and it was o.k. that I wasn’t an athletic person. She wasn't either and neither was my dad. My best friend, Honor, then beat my time, became the fastest girl-runner in class. By the end of the year, she and Tomiko were "together."

I stopped sprinting. And went back to getting picked towards the bottom on the class teams for gym.

I didn’t go out of my way to run again until high school, when I tried out for Crew. I got up at 4:30 a.m. each morning to get out to Lake Merced and completed all the morning runs and practices for try-outs for a whole month. I remember it being really hard because I didn't think of myself as athletic. I was pretty sure every morning I wouldn't be able to do it. But I didn't want to come in last. I was still small and not very strong. I didn’t make the team, even as a coxswain. I eventually found out that my mom had, without my knowledge, asked the coach if he would just let me continue to practice with them, even if I never be in a meet. He refused, apparently. And that was that. I never willingly ran just to run again, until this past Monday.

So I guess signing up for that thing was helpful in a way. It reminded me we bury demons deep and that I don't have complete onset of Alzheimer's yet.

And just in case that wasn't enough trauma for one week: Just when I thought I had looked at and thus laid to rest some core feelings of childhood shame, my 94 year old neighbor stopped me in the hall to ask if I was going to the Gaybors' (my new neighbors) BBQ the following day. Now, I live in a building with 5 apartments, containing six people total. I replied, “Well, I didn't know they were having a BBQ tomorrow. They didn’t invite me.” She looked awkward a moment and then away completely. The good news is that it cleared up why they had never replied to my invitation to come see the SF Mime Troupe in Dolores Park with me that same day.

So it appears that whether I like to run or not is kind of immaterial, since a person cannot ultimately outrun the triggers that stop us from feeling free. So in addition to this being the Month of Organized Running, this is also my month of: Relive Every Aspect of Elementary School Self-Confidence-Depleting Left-outness at the same time. And I am here to tell you that no matter how stodgy, hard, and worldly a person has become, it still always hurts my feelings.

Come here, demons. I still got space at my table.

Student Quote of the Day

Well... one of them anyways. There are so many.

Context: It is our private "graduation" for the seniors in our Environmental Education core group in our school. They've been together with the program for two years... which means at least six camping trips plus a mess of day hikes and helllllllla science lessons in there, among other things.

Quote: Before I met you, the biggest hike I'd ever taken was walking around the mall.

Nice. I would even say it is nicer than the student who appreciated me today in class by comparing me to an electrical socket. Well, maybe it is a toss up?

Freecycle: Sometimes Fun, Sometimes Scary, Always an Adventure

It started with his offer of headlamps. I raise my interested hand, he gives me a phone number, we talk, and he says he'll look around and then also uncovers all these sleeping pads and other stuff that could be useful to people who camp with hella kiddies.

I get his address. I get the car. I double park in his neighbor's driveway, just like his instructions suggest. Ring bell and wait. Meanwhile I am staring at the doors to two flats. One door open, the other one closed.

When no one comes, I holler helloooooooooo to the open door. Two women inside continue to sit, smoking, on their couch. One looks irritatedly at me and then turns away. They are apparently not the friendliest of neighbors, these flats.

I ring the bell twice more. Three minutes later, the door finally opens and this guy appears, carrying a slightly odd vibe. He gets a little agitated that I interacted with the downstairs women, and "Come in, come in"s me.

Now I gotta say, when I Freecycle, I bring stuff downstairs or throw it over the balcony, depending.

Not this fella. He tells me to follow him up, as the materials are in the back room. I walk in the entrance and he closes and triple bolts the doors behind me.

I am not pleased.

He ushers me to go in front of him up the stairs, and I reply, You go ahead, sir. But I want to make sure they don't come to tow the car, so I will just unlock this door again and leave it open for a moment.

To which he replies, I have a cat.

So I just unlock the door and leave it closed and follow him up. He talks wayyyyyyy too much - like nervous people talk. About how he is getting evicted and has to move, and where will he go? Babble babble babble. I keep my 6 million janitor-esque set of keys like brass knuckles in my hand. Notice the details in every room. Where is the kitchen. Do I see knives or open windows. What about the girls who are just below who have seen me. How loud my boots will be if I stamp hard on the ground. It is just so great to be trained to notice details like a girl in the United States. Awesome. So by this time, he gets to the room.

I stand in the hallway.

He: You can come in, ya know.

My Half Lie: No thanks. My friend is waiting for me to finish this because she lives two blocks from here and is supposed to meet me.

He is offering me all manner of helpful camping stuff, explaining shorty-story style the history of each item, but whatever he holds out, he holds out like food to a feral cat - just far enough to make them come forward. I am a just feral enough kitty, however, that I just put my hand out while staying in the hallway.

I always set an alarm on my phone for Freecycle and so my phone starts blowing up.

The other half of my lie: She is walking towards this address to meet me at the car. That must be her wondering where I am. I gotta call her back or go down - I am late. Thanks for the stuff.

And I bolt down the stairs to the outside world.

He follows me down, and when we get outside I turn to say:
I thank you for the things to help us out. That is cool. However, in the future, never bolt your door and ask a strange woman to come up to a back room. It is socially awkward and a bit scary, sir.

He looks embarrassed, but again, I never did see or get any signs of a cat.

Socially awkward? Opportunist? Answer unknown. Freecycle. Like all potential interactions between women and men in this country, it also has the potential to be called Fearcycle. Bummer.

Students Have Your Cell Number?

Now, here's something you too can look forward to!

It is a Sunday. A ridiculously hot, beautiful Sunday in May. And I am not talking 'San Francisco' hot; I am talking so hot that you can go to the 'San Francisco beaches without a down jacket' kind of hot. And it is Sunday. Did I mention that? A blissfully hot, quiet, student-free Sunday in May. At the beach. With a book. Without students. 48 hours without students. And so I am blissfully enjoying reading a book on the beach awaiting the arrival of J-D and doggie when I receive the following text message. From a student. A senior. Whom we will call N:

Yo loser want to hit up the beach tomorrow since like, its whatchamacallit [Senior Cut] day and im guessing you're not going to school?

My Inner Voice: Hmmm. Interesting.

My Text Voice: Yo dingbat you sent this to your teacher yo. Good to know, so you gonna be in my class tomorrow for sure to practice for thurs, eh?

As my text is sending, N texts me again:

Ummm ... Hey s----! Can u just totally ignore that text cause that was supposed to go to sam not sa--- ... Yah ... My bad. Forget that

Me: Busted.

Lol Im totally going to be there to practice for thurs. I have no idea what you mean by busted ..

Me: Liar:) see you mon

I'll see YOU tomorrow :P

And then I return to sun and chapter six of my book. Because it is a Sunday. A blissfully hot, quiet, hopefully-back-to-student-free Sunday in May.

Let this be a warning to all texting teachers and their students.

We All Have Our Types

Some people are leg people.
Some are guitar player people.
Some appreciate kick ass cooks.
Some like crooked teeth.
Some swoon over accents or ease in multiple languages.
Some fawn over individualistic anarchist bike messengers who all dress the same.
Some magnetize with beer pong almost-champions who never give up.

It is good to know your type. And far be it from me to yuck another's yum.

Especially because me? I am coming to realize my type, at least when it comes to the Y chromosome:

Turns out, I'm a sucker for stuck men. More specifically, I melt for men with tools who are having a hard time moving forward. And even more specifically than that, men whose inability to get real has translated into throwing themselves into "home "improvement." Which I think makes me a 'men who bury their grief in mountains of unmoving lumber and sawdust covered in time-dust' person.

Show me a man who has suffered traumatizing familial and/or social loss and who has, in his inability to communicate about and/or deal with his grief, taken to dreaming up countless home-change projects and started to tear apart his house rather than ripping out his own guts, all to keep his mind occupied and his hands busy and his muscles too tired to think. Show me a man who can even get through the stage of wrenching apart his house's innards and maybe even buying the lumber and nails and unearthed the power circular saws from the basement only to get stuck, in the same way he is stuck in his grief, and thus leaves his unfinished business as is all over his house perhaps forever. Because, for a long time, that has been my people.

I say that since, as I write this, I realize that might be the old me. Because as I see this pattern, I find I am moving forward myself.

So now: Show me a man who faces change by rebuilding his home one slab and tile and dust mask donning at a time. With turtle-like velocity. But he's doing it. Because that is my people.

Unless he is a she. In which case, show me a woman with her condo in order, a file-don't-pile system in place and utilized, a woman who is barreling through the universe. And she's my girl.

It's good to know your type.

Swine Flu Doesn’t Help My Family’s Neuroses, Thank You

It started with my folks hitting me up on Thursday for a ride to the airport on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m.

Me: No problem.

Now, I have to interject here that my mom, if you don't recall, is quite paranoid. DSM-IV type paranoid. Not funny-ha-ha-oh-those-Jewish-stereotypes paranoid. And upcoming trips really increase her anxiety 10-fold. To the point that she is insufferable to be near within 48 hours of a flight, despite her propensity for packing one week before the flight (if she is actually going on the trip). To the point that she yells and waves at her empty windows from the street lest some ever-present-in-her-mind lurker (or cab driver, or neighbor, or shuttle driver, or passerby hidden behind a tree, or stalker) get the idea that her home will be vacant of her insanity for more than one minute. [See 2.21.07 post for a better idea.]

And so, as predicted, my mom, in her infinite ability to be paranoid, blew up my phone more than three times by Friday noontime to remind me of our agreement, proving that all the stars were still in their right places. By her 8:00 pm call I mentioned, in my increasingly fevered, sneezing, shivering, sleepy, delirious, my-classroom-floor-sure-feels-good-on-my cheek state:

I am not feeling super well, so just in case I sleep through my alarm tomorrow morning, will you call me at 6:50 a.m. to make fer shure that I am up? That would be so great.

(I returned my head to its happy spot on the floor, knowing that she would cease to call me the rest of Friday, and would instead call me 50 more times starting at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Perfect.) But instead, she replied:

Vhat?! You are sick? Oh my god, you have The Svine Flu. I am calling for a shuttle. Do NOT take us to the airport. Do NOT come near us. Goodbye! (Click)

Me: Aaaaaaaaaah, the mouse-pooped, shoes-stomped-on linoleum tile of my classroom feels so good!

And I didn't heard from them again, so I was left to presume that either Swine Flu travels through phone lines, as my mother suspects, or they got their wee selves to the airport without my mad driving skills.

When I relayed this story to my friend, she asked: You mean she was worried because you'd been to Mexico?

Me: Oh no, that won’t occur to them for at least another 48 hours, if ever. They just believe strongly in the Jewish community's genetic propensities to get Bubonic Fever-y type things. Ya know, Europe and all.

And I didn’t hear from her until Wednesday morning, when she called angling for a pick-up from the airport that night.

Me: Um, last we spoke you thought I had Swine Flu, remember? Aren’t you still worried about me contaminating you?

Mom: Well, if you had The Svine Flu, you’d be dead. And you sound better.

Me: So let me make sure I understand this. You thought I had a deadly disease, hung up on me, never called me back, and had no idea whether I was alive until now. And now you want a ride.

Mom: Oh, that? Oh, S----, it is JUST like you to bring that old thing up – such a little comment I made!

Me: Well, ya did hang up on me and all like I was Plague-y.

Mom: Well, it would just be like you to get The Svine Flu, you know.

(This coming from a woman who, when I came out to her for the seventh time, told me not to believe I was bisexual just because I had sympathy for all underdogs, including The Gays.)

Me: Hmmm.

I cannot imagine what her comment means inside her own head, so I moved on to picking their wee selves up and depositing them back in their home, So we could all rest easier.

Smart-ish .... and Dumber

Somehow, the juxtaposition between two pieces of news struck me, and not because I was hit by a flying newspaper, and only perhaps because this is why I don't read the paper:

(1) The Associated Press reported today: "The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine." About f-bombing time (see below).

VERSUS

(2) The Supreme Court hearing and UPHOLDING the FCC v. Fox Network case about networks getting fined for the utterance of one prime-time "expletive," which some of these f$#%ing celebrities -- aka Scalia's

"foul-mouthed glitterati,"

-- accidentally let slip during whatever live this-or-that they are doing.

Really, federal courts have NOTHING better to do than split-vote along wing lines about one slipping f-bomb? But really, it isn't even that so much as what Scalia saying that the FCC is right to worry about this so that networks could be expected to continue to "give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children." To learn no expletives, just racist, heterocentric, ableist, sizeist, sexist stereotyping. Cool.

And yet even more but really, it isn't even that so much as this all goes back to the FCC's decision in 2006 that found "News Corp’s Fox TV network violated decency rules when singer Cher blurted out an expletive during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards broadcast and actress Nicole Richie used two expletives during the 2003 awards." Like THAT is what makes Fox News completely and utterly indecent and violating. Puh-leeze.

And An Era Ends

In the form of the Parkway Speakeasy Movie Theater in Oakland, lakeside.

When I was ten, I transferred into a new junior high, where I met my lifelong friend and conspirator, MW. When people ask her how we became friends, she tells them that this crazy short new girl invited her to her birthday party. She wasn't sure about the girl, but she was polite so she went anyways. And found out that for my birthday we would go see Vertigo at the then-independent, locally run Bridge Theater. And MW knew we would be friends for life.

But The Bridge is now a Landmark, which is somehow getting as close to "independent" in the Bay Area as movie theater can be. For now, this Sunday, after twelve years of charging like $5 a head and then serving couch sitting people pizza and beer and popcorn (and eventually wine and salad and pasta and all sorts of stuff) while we watched the boys babble their weird rambling introductions to whatever happened to be playing that day, the Parkway Speakeasy will be closing its doors. It is a sad time for independent, community theater. They did open the El Cerrito one, which will continue to operate, but this still marks the end of an era for me. R.I.P.

Just Imagine You Walked into Your Livingroom, and Your Table Was Gone

Ah Freecycle. So freewheelin, so strange.

It started with me manifesting. Ok, there, I admit it. I am sure this is all my fault. That and the existence of the word 'manifesting.'

I measured the space in my house for a side table I decided would be helpful to my organizational system. And then I thought about how to bring such a measurement of a table into my life.

Within 24 hours, there arrived an OFFER ad on good ol' Freecycle, the infestation of all manifestations. Someone in the Haight posted the offering of a side table in the EXACT dimensions I was looking for.

I asked. She accepted. We made a time.

I asked for a photo. She wrote a brief description. I asked for her number in case something came up. She wrote nothing. I asked if there was a driveway I could stop in. She wrote more nothing. I got a car. I got into the car, muttering the address to myself as I drove. As I drove, I quite possibly dyslexified the address. It is possible.

I got to the address. Well, what was hopefully the address. It was certainly a version of it.

I parked in the neighbors' driveway and pondered how many nanoseconds I could leave my vehicle unattended blocking a driveway before the Peace and Love residents of the upper Haight had my ass ticketed and towed. I locked the car to give myself time against AAA jimmying my locks.

I rang the bell.

No answer.

I rang the bell.

No answer.

I dawdled on the sidewalk.

The gate buzzed for a second. I took a last look at the car and ran back to the gate.

It buzzed. I shoved in the gate. The apartment door was locked. I knocked.

The door buzzed and I stumbled into the bottom of a two-story steep windy staircase. Greeeeeeat.

I hollered: HELLO?

Nothing.

UM HELLO?

A woman's voice: WHAAAAAAAAAT?

Me: HI, ER, I'M FROM FREECYCLE? I'M ---?

Her: ( )

Me: ER, OH, I THINK I TALKED TO A K----. IS A K---- HERE?

Her: YEA, SHE'S IN THE BACK. (Door slam, followed by silence.)

Me: Er, ok.

I climb the stairs to arrive at an entrance-y type of hallway. It has a couch in it, and next to the couch is a side table. The side table is about the size I'd imagined. The side table more or less looks like the very vague description its owner had offered in lieu of a photo. It is a very nice table. Just the sort of table a person such as myself might manifest. But the side table? It also had a bunch of stuff on it. Not Stuff to Freecycle seeming stuff, more like Stuff We Read and Do while sitting on the couch. Like mail and bills and stuff. Hmmm.

Me (back to yelling): ER, HELLO? HELLO? K----? (As I wander through the cricket-chirpingly-vacant apartment)

Silence.

Me (still yelling): ER, HELLO? ANYONE? IS THIS THE TABLE?

Silence.

Me (more yelling): OK, WELL I AM GOING TO TAKE Y'ALL'S TABLE NOW. I AM GOING TO PUT THE STUFF THAT'S ON IT ON THE COUCH. OK? COOL? HELLO? (Pause) OK, I AM LEAVING WITH YOUR TABLE NOW.

Silence.

Me (last yelling): OK, HERE I GO! WELL, THIS IS VERY STRANGE! GOOD NIGHT!

I then cuss audibly while nearly breaking my neck getting the table single-handedly down the stairs. Thankfully, the neighbors have yet to get DPT on my ass by the time I get to my car, and so away I drive with my nice little table that is hopefully not made of cocaine or anything else rapidly disintegrating or illegal.

I am a little scared to check my email, fearing K---- will email me to ask: Why didn't you show up at my place? And reiterate her address, which will have all the same numbers as where I was, but in a different order. Hmmm. Thoughts?

UPDATE #1:
My rather squawky conscience insisted that I write to K---- to ask if her table was gone. At midnight, she wrote be back:

Well you didn't stop by did you?! So of course it is there. Peace, k

Despite the clear passive aggressive sign-off of Ms. K, I experienced stomach churning and proceeded to spend the evening wrapped in a guilt quilt, reluctantly trying to figure out how to return the perfectly dimensioned side table to its rightful owners.

UPDATE #2:
K----- wrote again at 9 a.m:

Oh how strange. You must have been here when I stepped out somehow. Which is strange because I didn' step out. But I see that the stand is no longer here, so I guess you found the right place. :) k

Me: Phew.

Some People? They Love Love.

It is possible I am not one of them. I prefer to call this "The Day After February's Friday the 13th." Now it doesn't roll off the tongue like "Valentine's Day" or anything, but really that is just long for V.D, which is so old fashioned, and so Mr. V.D. Valentino can just take back his day if it is all the same to him. While I am a sharer, some things just don't need to be shared. Like people whose feelings give you emotional whiplash. Like those chalky heart candies. I pulled one at D's that says: In a Fog.

WTF.

The Day After February's Friday the 13th turned out ridiculously fun despite. Got profoundly ass kicked in soccer, got the "gift" of silence from some of those who love me, got to clean some of my own dirty laundry, got to swoon over all manner of crush-worthy musicians busy unrequiting love after pulling a distinctly boy-stereotype-dismissive invite, got Rite Spotted and belted and bruised and also ear pierced by a Bette Boopesque voice... it just kept going.

But, as there is always good even in the not so much, I really want to thank CoCo for turning me on to my current favorite seasonal poem, which somehow reminds me of so much all at once:

LIFE STORY, by Tennessee Williams

After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there's some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with the mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all along,

and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in hotel rooms.

What would you do...

...if you found proof that you were secretly on the inside the most cheesy romantic ever in the form the most romantic sentiment you had seen ever and yet had no one to send it to? Well, if you were me, you'd share it with all y'all.


(from xkcd.com)

So Many Reasons to Love Craig from Craig's List

Really. I am a fan.



It all started when Craig from Craig's List invited me to dinner.

Someone who said her name too fast called my cell from a blocked number during my prep period.

Hello!

Hello, am I speaking to (insert my name here)?

Yeeeeeeeeeeees? (My suspicious mind.)

Craig would like you to be a guest at his table for Celebrity Waiter.

Huh? Who? (My confusion.)

Craig Newmark.

(OK, actually, at the time I didn't get the name. I was calling him Newmeyersomething for a long time. But I have been corrected.)
And who is that?

You know… Craig Newmark?

(My silence.)

You know… Craig? (Her exasperation.) From Craig’s List Craig? (Distinct sound of her rolling eyes through the phone.)

Oh. Huh. Whacky! Fer shure... (Sound of my synapses catching up with the rest of my body, linking together all the information I clearly do not know.) ...Wait, what's a Celebrity Waiter?

Craig would pay for you to sit at his table. He would pay for a whole table of teachers. He would be your celebrity waiter. He would give you money to tip him. You would use this money to tip him. He will compete with the other celebrity waiters to see who can raise the most tip money from their tables, which all goes to a non-profit that this is a fundraiser for. You would tip him every time he does something outrageous, helpful, or extraordinary. All the money would go to charity. (My unasked question about pocketing the money answered. Check. Just kidding.)

Um, like I would tip him his own money for bringing me soup? Or more like I would have to tip him for a lap dance? Because I don’t actually really want a lap dance.

I assure you, this is not that kind of event. (Sound of her huffy feathers ruffling. Sound of my belief that the need for clarification usually trumps the danger of irritating others.)

So I tip him for bringing me vegetables?

Sure. Right. Fine. Whatever. (Sound of her regret at having to call me.)

And Craig is totally paying for me. I do nothing. (Sound of my genetic lawyer mind at work on overtime.)

Right. For your whole table. A table of teachers and Craig would like you all to be his guests. (Sound of her fingers tapping on her desk.)

(Sound of my synapses falling into place enough for me to understand that though a table of teachers is clearly a charity case here, we are not the actual charity for which Craig is fundraising and so I say:) Well fer shure. Sign me up.

In all this it did not occur to me to ask how this woman got my cell phone number. Details, details, details.

Weirder still is that when I put the word on the street to get some of those details, all the usual suspects denied any knowledge of how I got invited. Actually, many of them expressed surprise – like my boss, who I found out would also be there, but as a minion in the back room, counting money that comes in, because she works for the beneficiary of this particular fundraiser. Which means that I do, too. And yet I am a paid-for guest.

So even weirder still is that another one of the celebrity waiters there is the local head of AT&T (or something like that). So of course I take the occasion to ask him WTF is wrong with AT&T for donating the maximum amount allowed to the Republican Party, thereby causing me to refuse to pay AT&T any more money. He does not have a good answer for me, and I am still waiting. Bad celebrity waiter. He is apparently generous, but for the wrong team. And he is certainly not generous with information.

And even weirder still is that another of the celebrity waiters is MC Hammer, who auctions off both a very fluffy white coat and a private dance lesson (with him, duh) and who allows me to politely address as “Mr. Hammer, no one will believe me, so can I take a picture with you?” Which makes him the most generous Celebrity Waiter so far, but in a good way, not like the bad AT&T man. Because Mr. Hammer dances on stage, sells the coat off his back, and generously agrees to a photo op, even though he cannot figure out who will be taking our picture, since I did not have any enterage in tow. I try to ease his worries by shoving our faces together and holding my arm and camera out in classic chin-enhancing self-portrait taking pose. I mean… I am a self-portrait pro! He STILL looks worried but I do it.
Which apparently is yet more evidence that I am a complete sin verguenza, for it turns out to be common knowledge that you just don’t self-portrait with celebs. (I don’t know how everyone but me knows this, yet everyone groans audibly when I mention this part of the story.) And my point? MC Hammer? Very generous celebrity waiter. In a good way.

And meanwhile back at our own table: Weirder still was how much drunker our celebrity waiter was than our table of mooching teachers. One glass of wine for us, one swig from the bottle for him. Aw. Having said that, Craig still wins my prize for the most generous funny and kind celebrity waiter. Not only did he pay for all of us ragamuffin teachers to invade this shin-dig, he paid us to tip him, let us take whack-ass pictures of him, AND he even bought me an Elmo Doll. Very generous.


And it totally wasn't his fault that Elmo now officially scares the poop outa me. Craig couldn't have known. I mean, Elmo seemed innocent enough at first. I was a bit worse for wear as I stumbled from Union Square onto MUNI towards home. It was frigid out so I wedged Elmo under my armpit. I didn’t understand why I kept hearing voices. But it is MUNI, so not a big surprise there. And it was even colder and more desolate on my street, so with Elmo tucked under my elbow, I clutched my wrap tighter around my flimsy cotton dress. And heard more voices. I spun wobbily around in my 5 inch spiked heels. Saw no one. Clutched and walked. Heard more voices. Really one voice. Teasing. Nasally.

Made it into my apartment, hearing that weird voice as I turned the key to open my door. Hmmm. I detached Elmo from under my armpit and looked him face to face. Placed him on the couch. And he SPOKE. God knows what he was going on about – his annunciation sucks. Turns out Craig gave me a Talking Elmo. Creepy shit. But Craig didn't mean to terrorize me with this addition to my home and really, I am now a die-hard Craig fan. It is possible the feeling is not mutual, but I am a loyal girl, so I dare you to bad mouth my new favorite rich person. Maybe I will even MC him from the event.

On other good news fronts, this event also allows me to check off my “I will say yes to one random thing per week” resolution. For this week anyways.

Friday is Buy Nothing Day

And I hope everyone will participate in this international day created through Adbusters Magazine. If not by doing a Whirl-Mart, then at least by dressing up as sheep and cheerfully baaaaaaaing at shoppers downtown, or at lesser least in buying nothing, or at the very least nothing material, or at the super very least buying only local organic sustainable materials.

Since July, I have been pretty good about buying nothing material anyways, with a couple glitches. Glitch #1: Since I am buying nothing, sometimes others still feel compelled to try and figure out what I secretly am dying to have someone else buy for me. Like I cannot buy crap myself. Which I can. It's not like I signed a binding contract in the blood of my students (euw) with myself, people. It's that I am choosing to acquire no more things unless major peer pressure dictates I must (like toilet paper for guests - sigh). Anyways, for the "those still unclear on the concept" glitch, I try to help them out. Like when they ask me, "Don't you LOVE that shirt? You don't have it, do you?" while glancing at me sideways, I say, "Well, it'd look so cute on you. For myself, I think if I got it this year, it'd be a great regifting shirt!" which serves to turn the sly sideways glance into a squinty nose wrinkly glare, which I believe ends the conversation and the very thought on the person's mind.

I don't know why people are so against the mention of regifting. It is environmental, thoughtful, and resourceful. I support it almost completely fully. Which reminds me of the other glitch - the very rare rescinding of my own I-don't-have-some-bloody-binding-contract-with-myself glitch to buy a 'nonessential' material item. The rare case? My brother's birthday present. He wanted an Ipod Nano. He could care less that I am trying not to buy anything material. That interferes with one of his major life goals: the acquiring of expensive toys, and a lot of them. My brother, being as subtle as a camel standing on a freeway entrance in Boston, hinted, prodded, requested, asked, and downright told me that is what he wanted. Maybe 50 times in a 5 day period.

Check.

So I thought a lot about it. And I got him one. Told him I had gotten his present. And I was bringing it with me when I came for a visit. I ordered the Red one so at least a penny would be deposited in the fight to minimize AIDS deaths in Africa. I had it engraved on the back with the words: "My sister loves me." I wrapped it. I brought it. I handed it to him.

He replied:

Oh my god! Thanks! You know what's funny? I just got myself an Ipod Nano yesterday at Costco! I haven't even taken it out of the box. Hmmm, I guess I could return it. But it has more memory than the one you bought! Maybe I could return yours. Hey, you engraved the back! My wife needs one - she breaks them all the time. Hey, J, look - a present for you!

And hands her the red one. And this is how much a fan of regifting I am: 98.8% of me laughed and felt resigned relief. Because it was funny. And because luckily, I do also love my recent-sister.

So anyways, I hope this Friday, post the Day Turkeys Dread, you will buy nothing, so no one you are related to regifts your hella thoughtful present within seconds, right before your eyes. Believe me, it is better that way.