Well you know his birthday's just around the corner now

Don't do it! Do noooooot do it. Do not write about the "crisp autumn air" or pumpkin cookies or spiced lattes or scarves and tights. Do not - do you hear me? - do not use the word "cozy" or "snuggle". If I read one more lady blog about your "Fall Favorite Things" I'm going to have to go all hood rat on you.

When I read through blogs today I felt like I was trapped in an acid trip designed by Oprah and Martha Stewart. I could smell the lavender linen spray everywhere. When I finally closed my computer, I got up and fluffed a pillow before arranging my books by the color of their spines. Thank god I snapped out of it before I started laying them down horizontally and placing sea anemone shaped tchotchkes on top.

I know it's fall, but please ladies. We've already got the Home & Garden/Food Network All-Stars shoving fake fall leaves in our faces and on our cupcakes. Let us make it through this fall season without too many trips to Michael's. If I throw up in my mouth anymore today I might remove the remnants of tooth enamel that survived the first 50 little pukes.

You know this means gingerbread lattes and red turtlenecks form the Gap are just around the bend. Oh Easter Bunny, where are you when we need you?

My Mondays are different from your Mondays

So on my Mondays, I work straight from 9:00 to 3:55 with no break. I teach one 100 minute block followed by a 10 minute break to start my morning off. That break is used to mop up the remains of the last class and set up for the next. If I am lucky, I can manage to shove half of one of those heart shaped oat cake things in my mouth before some kid is standing in front of me asking me something like, "Did you get drunk this weekend?" or, a new favorite of some of your country's future, "What clubs do you go to?"

Then I have "lunch". This is a 30 minute piece of my day that happens like this:
"Alright everyone, pack your bags, push your chairs in and show me your planners on your way out the door!" I am trying to smile more, so while I say this, I look like I have some kind of hidden orthodontics in my mouth that make me make this face that shows my teeth - kind of the way a horse might look when people say it is smiling, but everyone knows it's not, really, because it is a horse and not a person. Then I look up and there are 10 minutes before my advisory period. Then maybe - mmmmmmaybe - I eat a yogurt too fast and my stomach feels funny for awhile. My last class is a poor man's version of the first two because I can't remember what I said to which class. My jokes are getting all mixed up and my horse smile looks weird, a little lopsided, like the horse is very very tired, which I am.

Finally everyone goes away and I am left with lots of work to do. People keep coming in and "need" to talk to me. I really "need" some whiskey and a double IPA. I really "need" you to just let me have 42 seconds to myself on my no food no pee days.

And then, when we were driving away to go see some friends who have normal lives and can go out on week nights without accepting zombie-like lives the morning after, there were goats. This lady who did a tarot reading for me, she gave me a card to take home and it had a a goat on it. She said it was playful and that I should try to have more fun in my life. She also said I should sleep around a bit. I said okay.

So there were goats at the bottom of the hill from work. In the city. Near Candlestick. I think they were working.

Thank you for coming ladies and gentlemen

He got married. This is the part where the bride and groom go around and say hi to everyone. There was an open bar with whiskey, any way you like it. I like it in a glass in my hand.

I've been working 500 hours a day. More no say can.

It is what it is

I think I received a negative paycheck. There was so much taken out I wanted to call the President. But no. We're going to call Malu and see if she'll come and explain all of this to us. But I don't think I want to understand it. I want it to stop! Call the President somebody!

Make me pay back student loans while I'm teaching these kids? Call the President! Pay the PG & E bill that goes up and up and up every month? Stop! Call the President! Make me teach a roomful of my Social Security earners on less money a year per pupil than any other state? Call the po-lice!

It'd be great if the mob ran schools. We'd have everything we need and no kid'd ever be out of line.

Eff you, pay me.

(p.s. I don't want to ruin the gangster mood, but the picture is from happy hour last week, before we knew about the money.)

This is the last email I sent today!

Hi!

Just kidding - Hi.

I am going to a work "retreat" in Marshall near Point Reyes tomorrow. It's an overnight. Today was my first day back. My room was wrecked, but my meeting left me, as the first meeting of the year often does, cautiously optimistic. Some of my things are missing: my electric sharpener (this is not such a bad thing), some books and my iconic black stool. I went into all the classrooms and looked for the stool. Along the way, I picked up a dia de los muertos rubber stamp, some poetry books - for people who like that, 3 x 5 index cards and a brown stool. All of these things are from the classrooms of teachers who left. A couple of new teachers already put stuff in their rooms, so I couldn't see if there was any good "learning space" carrion. I don't know if these actions are reflective of teacher culture and show the implications of crappy budgets, or if it's just me - I'm a vulture.

Saturday night - busy? I have a plan.

(This photo shows a wall in Granada in the southern part of Spain. It was 40 degrees centigrade that day. I think the figures were melting on the wall. That's why they look that way.)

The real thing

He had just hit his head after falling down - his dad had admonished him for spitting in the fountain. I don't doubt that over the centuries, this was not the first little boy to spit in the beautiful waters of the Alhambra, watching the glob separate and spread out until it rode a ripple to the edge of the small pool. After a smothering hug from his mother and assurances from his father that he was, in fact, just fine, he stood up and saw her.

She saw him at the same time. Naked baby doll in a similar clutch, she stood still and time stood still and they just looked at each other.

The spell was broken when mom and dad started positioning the boys for another photo. He slowly turned to face his father's camera, rubbing his head while he looked up.

This is getting ridiculouser and ridiculouser

"Welcome to JFK International Airport. When you arrive at gate 23, take the escalator towards baggage claim. We hope you have an enjoyable s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-stay here in New York City. If New York City is not your final destination..."

And it went on. And on, and onandonandon. While we stood, suffocating, on the airless tram to gate number nobody knows (the 23 thing was just the available track), that message played on an unforgiving loop complete with track skipping every single play.

People were crying. People were hungry. Delta did not offer vouchers for anything to eat over this 5 hour saga. We were supposed to board for take 2 at the same gate as a flight to Barcelona. Our people were trying to get on that flight. Barcelona people didn't know what was going on. The flight crew didn't know what was going on. THe gate agents were confused as to why there were so many people asking about a middle state.

Shellshock. Short term PTSD. Delta = nemesis

Picture #1: ethereal looking Minneapolis crying girl and dad
Picture #2: pilot - "Are you piloting the flight to Minneapolis?" "I don't know. I think...I don't know."
Picture #3: "This is getting ridiculouser and ridiculouser!" You took the words right out of my mouth, sister.