The Intersection 

Spring is Springing

It's time to wake up... It's finally spring! Hibernation is over. Get up! Get out! Rain? What rain?

Swoosh, Zoom, Bang: It's Christmas

Wow. One week until Christmas Break. This is nutso. Every year I am amazed anew. The school year is tumbling along its course. Harney is hoping to earn $45,000 from her Art Auction in the school gym. I can't afford to go because it's $15.00 to get in to the school gym to bid on her fine art. Danny changed the date of the play twice and pretended both times that I just wrote it down wrong, even though he was right there both times watching me write it and say it out loud ten or twelve hundred times. Yesterday, Susan Castillo announced the tossing out of CIM and CAM. Hold on tight to the pendulum that is education. Weeeeeeeeee! Until it makes you puke.

Myself, I am tired. We're nearing run-through rehearsal stage and then there's 2 weeks off for all of them to forget their lines. Yikes. But seriously, I will send you the dvd of Alex, Krystal and Angela signing "Double Double Toil and Trouble; Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble" [WORK WORK; TROUBLE TROUBLE; FIRE down by the floor, up to their faces; make a cauldron out of Angela's wheel chair and Angels signs BOIL and Krystal and Alex make big bubbles with their hands above her head.] Damn cute! And Melissa made me cry with her Greek tragedy Cassandra as she goes to her death, translated to a soldier shot in war. It kills. So, I have a little hope for improvement. :)

The play is called Elaborate Starlight. It is a series of monologues that show the uniqueness and inconsistency of individual human beings. There are excerpts from the ancient Greek, Ecclesiastes, Taoist texts, Yeats, Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, Lord Buckley and Free to Be You and Me. The characters are a wise janitor, a meth addict, a dying soldier, Hermione and Andromache of Troy on the Jerry Springer Show, a 1920's flapper who gets drunk with a bear, middle school nerds in love with the popular boys... But I do go on.


Life is good. The household rocks. Except the heating bill. Gas went way up and now I am very chilly. Two more weeks and it starts getting lighter and lighter again. Before you know it we will be spit out, exhausted and happy right in the middle of summer, right in the middle of the lake, perhaps right in the middle of the night, swimming under the warm, starry sky. Oh, so hard to imagine as I sit here shivvvvering in December.

The New View

So here's the view from my office window ... All things considered, it's not too bad.



However ... NO smiling children, NO fluttering hands, NO white board, NO decoratable bulletin board, NO "my space" ...
Oh the little things we miss when they are gone.

girl, one

So, I thought to myself, "Why not stop by that Gypsy store and check out what they have this fall?" And then I thought, "Who would go with me and share in the joy?" I looked around the lunch table. Joe, to my right sat snarfing his pizza and lecturing the group about French History. "No." Judy sat across from him, absorbing his wisdom; her little red curls waved and her little freckles winked and her eyes, that frightening shade of blank, pooled at him. "No." Sepideh asked what color of green I thought our shirts were. "Froggy Green," I spelled. "Ew! Gross, Frogs." "No." My eyes meandered down the long table... Debbie?

And so I thought to myself, "Can I picture any one of those I work with suffering through me popping out of the dressing room in vintage underwear asking, "Can't I get away with these?" Any one of anyone giving me an honest, "NO"? Any of them trying on outrageous hats or picking through the sparkly treasures with me to see their stories? Appreciating their unNEWness and their imperfections? No. And no and no and no and no.

Sigh.

I miss you.

The Moon

Something tells me that the moon is lying again.

A Revelation on the Bleachers

A day like any other ... basic language, hard science, what is "equal"? ... But today had a special twist, it was homecoming week and today was their BIG pep rally. 2 1/2 hours devoted to pep and rallying. There was the band, cheerleaders, grades 6 - 12 and all the teachers. There were games, karaoke performances and a dance ... she interpreted the best she could but his attention wasn't on her, it was on the motions all around them. The frenzied realization of the seniors that this was their LAST homecoming and they needed to make it the best, the thrilling realization by the 6th graders that this was just their first, not realizing that their last would hit them quicker than they expected and the frightening realization by some of the teachers that this might be their last as well and perhaps the music was a bit too loud ...
And as she sat there, during a rendition of "Elvira" by a group of well intentioned male staff members, it dawned on her - why she hated this job, why it felt empty everyday as she closed her computer; why she cried reading about her old life's homecoming and how they smashed their worthy opponent. She realized she missed the comradery, the lunch outings, the "water - cooler" chats ... she missed having HER kids and HER classroom and HER volleyball team to introduce and HER coaches to be proud of. There was nobody to share the excitement with because there was not another one of her to share it with. Other teachers, yes, but they had each other. She was a mist that floated in once or twice a week, full of answers to the questions they didn't even know they had. She took away the one they just didn't have a clue what to do with for at least 30 minutes and gave them a break. Then, as quietly and softly as she had arrived at one location, she would leave, on to the next puzzle and problem and question that had to be answered.
The realization hit her fast and hard and brought tears to her eyes. Sitting there, on bleachers that she had once sat on as that excited 6th grader, as that frenzied senior and now, as the frightened teacher - wondering exactly what the hell the future held.

gossip

WE MUST TAAAALLLLK!

(Cartoon from Toothpaste for Dinner)

October? Already?

This is how I feel at work. I believe it's titled Ship of Fools.


Hieronymus Bosch

Rear Ended

So here's the skinny ...

Driving the BIG WHITE MINIVAN through town to find some shitake mushrooms for some killer soup.
Enter the right turn lane but stop to allow the traffic turning left in front of me to finish turning (they have the right away light).
BAM! Dude runs right into the back of the BIG WHITE MINIVAN.
Knocks the wind out of me - he comes to the window "Do you have a cell phone?"
I call 911 - they are very nice "Someone is on the way".
Police arrive, we move to a nearby parking lot to disect what has just happened.
"What happened?"
"He ran into the back of my BIG WHITE MINIVAN"
"I didn't see her."
Questioning face "You didn't see her? Ma'am, how long were you there in your BIG WHITE MINIVAN?"
"Oh, 30 seconds to a minute."
"And you say you didn't see her?"
"No, I'm sorry, I just didn't notice her BIG WHITE MINIVAN." (sitting at a complete stop, brake light ON, turn signal ON)

So seriously, this is like a double yarmukal award.
Maybe I need to paint like bright orange racing stripes all the way around my new car...
At least the nice doctor yesterday gave me some killer pain pills.

Another Week ... Done

UGH ... about the only term I know powerful enough to define the past week. It seems I can fall behind on a job where I don't even know what the f%&* I'm doing. And can I get a little feedback from my supervisor?!? Apparently not. Perhaps if I was a Psych, then I could rate a call back on my various questions.

I MISS KNOWING WHAT I'M DOING!!!

Ok, better now.