Vote No on Prop 8

IMP. Integrated math is great. Students have to explain process. The simple matter of a right answer won't get you far.

The gays are everywhere.

Lunch time

This is from my most recent lunch supervision duty patrol.

There's this group of mentally retarded kids that come out for part of our lunch from the school we share our building with. Some of them, you just look at their faces and you know they are different. Whether it's the heavy eyelids and huge smile of the students with Down's or the unusually clenched hands of other kids, there is usually some kind of indicator that signals, This kid is different from you.

So if you don't have one of the physical markers, and if you're not holding hands with one of the aides, you look like any other kid from the other school who shouldn't be out during our lunch time. The kid I'm thinking about, he strays from the pack. He'll go and try to talk with different cliques of our students who always look a little confused when he leaves them. Once, though, when I first met him, he decided to whistle and say something nasty about how good I looked. I can't remember the firey, furious, speech I gave him. "Who do you think you are" was somewhere in there.

Then some kid told me "He's with those other retarded kids."

Oh (momentary remorse). So? (anger fully intact)

He's done it once more since his initial compliment.

Happy Halloweenie

No one here was dressed as a pumpkin, sadly.

I hope nothing terrible happened to you.

Fashioning Change

Fashioning Change was a fashion show fundraiser held last night for the Barack Obama campaign. I've never given money to a political campaign, and I likely wouldn't have given any money to this political campaign if a fashion show hadn't lured me in.

East bay fashion and jewelry designers filled a medium sized space just south of Market and they brought all of their followers with them. This was not a city crowd. As I observed, there was a certain too cool for school vibe absent from the event that reinforced my love of the east bay. Could I turn down a warehouse space in the Dogpatch or Potrero Hill? Not a chance. But I'd move while quietly telling myself it's only temporary and I'll be back in the open spaces and warmer temperatures of Oakland in the future, when I've had my fun.

And don't get me wrong. I love the city too, and I know not everyone there carries that cooler than thou bearing. And I suppose I've outed myself as being someone who goes to places where I experience the throngs in their chunky glasses, grandpa hat and vintage shirt uniform. They go places where there's good food and often fresh fashion and new art to take in. Too bad they can't find their own style.

Viva la lake.

Holy Roller

Eff the bumper sticker. We're going large.

When I saw this truck, I thought the driver was one of those people who go to those storefront churches in the mission. They go on Sunday mornings, go home for lunch and then come back to keep it going until the evening.

Then there's after school church a few days a week. You go from five until the holiest roller starts to buckle - and that's usually between 9 and 10 o'clock at night. Jesus. Jesus Cristo.

Evangelicals. I have a few in classes. They're something else. They're judged, and they act like it.

Fresh in SF

I wanted you to see her square gold bamboo earrings, but she wouldn't move her hands.

They call that hair bump so many girls wear now a "hump". I remember first noticing the phenomenon when a lot of celebrities were doing it, most notably Gwen Stefani. This girl took the hump and made it her own. While all teenagers are all styley in their Old Navy, H & M kind of way, this girl is hecka styley. I think it takes a real sense of fashion and some guts to walk out of the house like that when you're in 9th grade, both of which I suffered a deficit of in my high school career. I didn't learn to say "Fuck it" until I was 30.

So you may think her hair is crazy, crazy, crazy. But you know you dig that hump.

From the Vault - Ski Week End

And the credits were rolling. We were on our way home to enjoy the next half of our winter's end break, not skiing, not snowboarding, not sledding.

About the first picture: there must've been some friend of a friend of a friend breach, because somehow Elef made it to my Facebook photos.

Elef Neso (Orange County, CA) wrote at 3:50pm on March 15th, 2008 How do you do that? Make shite look beauty? Delete

I don't know, Elef, I don't know. I just do it.

I also don't know who on earth you are.

Thanks, man.