NaNoWriMo

Dude, I finished! I kind of can't believe it. I really thought I'd puss out before the end, then when it was clear I wasn't, I was still not sure I'd have time to finish. But I did! And it's not great, but it's somewhat satisfying. Maybe with some serious editing it will be readable.

Paper Cut of Doom!
Last Sunday I got this nasty bleeding papercut. By Wednesday it still really hurt, so I put a band-aid on it so it wouldn't continue to hit every damn thing I touched. Thursday after one change of bandaid it still felt funny, so I took it of to look at it and to my surprise, there was flesh where no flesh had been before! Extra skin! With nerve endings! Ouchie ones! It was an abcess! Piggs asks if that finger is warmer than the others, and lo! It is! I go wash the hell out of it with one of my numerous antibacterial products and decide to let it dry out. I also aply Bactine liberally. Fortunately, it is now nothing but a little scab, but the skin around it still feels funky and kind of hurts. The good part is I got to hear a couple really grody stories from my mom about infected fingers. Ewww.

dreams

Funny, I've always had weird or vivid dreams, and like many people, I've had a ton of flying/falling dreams. My flying usually involves running my ass off, then leaping and flying for only short distances. But this morning I woke up from a dream that I realized I'd had several of lately -- breathing underwater dreams. Yeah, they feel a little like flying dreams because I'm floating or swimming, but I'm aware that I can't normally breathe underwater, and I take very small breaths of water, because that's all I can get. I can't breathe very deeply or anything, but enough to stay underwater. I can get oxygen straight out of the water in small portions. It's kind of cool.

Well, tomorrow I go back to work after this wonderful 5 day break. Wednesday was a good time to dink around, get a few errands done. Thursday was family day. Friday was big homemade breakfast, then lounging, then band practice, then a fancy dinner date. Saturday was not much of anything, which was wonderful. We had sushi in the evening, I got a little ahead on my NaNoWriMo (I'm worried now that I'm getting to the end, because I'm not looking forward to the upcoming death of one of my characters), and I put a bunch more CDs into my computer, although I still have almost an entire binder (400-ish CDs) to go, and nowhere near the capacity for all of my music. I might get an external hard drive at some point.
Today so far I had toast and coffee, showered, called my mom to see if she wants to see "Finding Neverland," (she does), read the entire Sunday paper (my favorite Sunday morning activity), and I'm just firing up the computer to write a little more. I figure if I do it now, I won't have to later. I only have 5,500 words to go in three days, so I should be fine. Then I'll be a NaNoWriMo winner! It's like the special olympics of writing -- if you finish, no matter how well you did, you win. Okay, take care, y'all.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yeah, well, everybody and their brother is doing it, so why not me.

Thanksgiving isn't a big deal to me other than that I really enjoy spending time with my family, and I am a crazy person for stuffing and pumpkin pie. But I do often stop and reflect on the things I'm thankful for, just a few of which follow:

Love
Family
Friends
Health
Security
Freedom
My home
My cat
Having strong opinions, and generally having them respected
Music
Books
Being willing to change, and able to
A fire in the fireplace
Good food, good drink
Wet leaves stuck to the sidewalks, bright red
Intelligence (don't be an asshole, I'm not saying I'm thankful for my genius or anything, just that I'm thankful for being relatively smart)
My warm fuzzy robe
Growing older (yes, really)
Occasionally having ballet classes where I actually kick ass (rare)
The anticipation of getting a big dead pine tree for my living room!
This amazing year, and all my new experiences, including, but not limited to: My first (and second through eleventh) plane rides, taking me to New York, the Caribbean, Portland, and Palm Springs. Meeting my loved one's loved ones. Moving in with said Piglet.
Wireless internet
A bright future, filled with possibilities.

And in with the friend and family stuff, I am so happy for all of them, who have, between them all, gotten halfway done with law school and proven themselves extremely accomplished (best oral advocate award!), found a cute new place to settle semi-permanently, had babies (two friends), decided on a graduate school path and found a school that really seems to fit, moved in with boyfriend/girlfriend, started college again after a long absence, sought counseling when needed, recovered from illness and become an auntie, started on a managerial track at a new job, received a glowing letter recommending retention, retired and gotten a bunch of new experiences done, too, including painting most of the house, found out they were pregnant (the thankful list for that new baby will have to wait until next year) . . . really, the good stuff list goes on and on, and I feel extremely happy that all their lives are going so well, and for all the good things, big and small, that they have gotten or acheived. It makes my life feel full and (dare I say it?) blessed, too.

So, thanks.

Oh, and because I think someone comes and gets you in the middle of the night if you don't say this (listen to the radio if you don't believe me) on your Thanksgiving list, I AM THANKFUL FOR MY WONDERFUL COUNTRY WHERE WE HAVE THE FREEDOM TO SAY WHATEVER WE WANT, MOSTLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN FIGHTING FOR OUR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS AND WAY OF LIFE OVER IN IRAQ. (At least, I think that's what they're fighting for, right? I just read it from the script . . .)

With a self like this, who needs enemies?

Yeah, I punched myself in the face last night. No kidding, all day long I've been waiting for someone to ask me what happened to my nose, so I could answer truthfully "I punched myself in the face." It went down like this -- it's bedtime, I reach over to hug my bedtime partner, and with my right arm, apparently misjudge where my nose is, because I rake it badly with my thumbnail. I start laughing right away, and Piggs says incredulously "Did you you just punch yourself in the face?" which sends me into an even worse laughing fit, the kind where I'm totally out of breath and some spit in my throat starts making clicking noises. Tears are streaming down my face when I finally calm down a little, and he asks "are you bleeding?" I tell him no automatically, but he looks over and says I am. I tocuh the spot, come back with blood on my hand, and start cracking up again. I don't know why it was so funny. You should see the other guy. Oh, wait. I bloodied myself by punching myself in the face last night. Classic.

Count Mockula's Busy Day

Well, it was a whirlwind of a day. I started with a little cherry chocolate tea loaf and a tangerine with some coffee, cleaned a little, then went to Naked Lounge to write. I got my 2,000 words for today in, which still leaves me 4,000 words behind, from the night my laptop got commandeered for repair purposes and the night we had out of town company. Anyway, I have to write more tonight. For a few minutes, I actually felt very cool, because my friend Kizzy came in, and she radiates cool, and I know her, you know? Plus she introduced me to her companion as "a fellow musician," and when she asked what I was busy working on, I got to tell her about NaNoWriMo.

Then I went to Mom's house, and they were having my stepdad's (hereafter known as "boompah") dad and close family friends over, and we had lunch. Then I ran home and got Piggs, and we went to my cousin's place for my 4-year-old twin cousins' birthday. I don't think my Little Golden Books went over as well as the fairy princess dress-up set or the Spiderman bean bag, not to mention the kiddie ATVs and bicycles, but I feel they have staying power. After all, I got Chris "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Gerald McBoingBoing" and Beth "There's a Monster at the End of This Book," "Richard Scarry's Word Book," and "Bedtime for Little Bear." I loved Richard Scarry's stuff when I was a kid, and that Little Bear one ruled.

After that, we went to the insanely crowded mall to look at printers (but made no decisions). On the way out, we saw one of the most asshole parking lot manouevers ever: a car was waiting for a spot that someone was just pulling out of. It was obvious they'd been waiting for a while. Another car pulled up from a stop sign around the corner, edged forward, and just as the parked car pulled out, they raced in front of the waiting car and pulled in. I mean, it was totally intentional, there was no way they could have not noticed the car waiting. I must assume that the asshole's car is now keyed. If the other driver didn't do it, she's a better woman than I.

Then we went to the Doubletree to pick up one of Piggs' friends from SoCal, and we had a nice dinner at (where else?) our favorite Saturday night sushi place. She seemed really nice, so I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time hanging out, but her boyfriend's band was playing in Roseville and she needed to get back to the hotel in order to go with them. Anyway, now we're at home hanging out. Piggs is playing San Andreas, which he just got today (I was PLANNING to get it for him for Xmas, but he couldn't wait), and it looks very cool. It looks difficult though. I thought about getting Trivial Pursuit, be even though I love Tetris, I don't play it often, so I could hardly justify buying another game, could I?

Well, I'm going to try to get another two thousand words in tonight so I'm only two thousand behind. I have Wednesday through Friday off for Thanksgiving, so hopefully I'll get some writing done then and maybe get ahead. We'll see.
Take care all,
K

A few minutes free

So I can blog. I fell behind a little on NaNoWriMo. I need to catch up this weekend. I'm about 2,000 words behind where I'd like to be. Bummer. At least it's not any more than that.

Bad karma.

So, I'm driving home last night and my car feels wobbly. I have a low tire. I stop and put air in it, but it's wobbly again by the time I get home. No big deal, I think, I'll leave a little early and ride my bike to work. But my bike's got a flat, too! Criminy!

This is the second month in a row that I haven't gotten my mid-month paycheck. It's not huge, last year averaging about $125, but it still irritates me, partly because this year it should be more money (I'm now theoretically getting paid for after-school meetings and a class I teach after school two days a week). It's just irritating, I guess, because why should I have to wait until mid-December for work I did in September? What a pain.

Interesting stuff -- I love reading the Bee, and I'm hopelessly addicted to it. Maybe because it reflects the community I know so well. For example -- two weeks ago, there was an article on the guy who runs my favorite sushi place (Kamon on 16th), and whom I've talked to on many occasions. Last week was an article on Amber Kloss, a personal friend. Three weeks ago was a tidbit on my ex-father-in-law (he "had a few beers" and lost his wallet, but it was returned). Then I went to get a massage on Tuesday (Monkeygirl sprung for a gift certificate) and the massage therapist was none other than Christelle Garcia, who was featured a couple months ago because she founded the "River Bats," a goal ball team (basically like soccer, but blind). Kooky, huh?

Okay, got work stuff to do. --CM

Whew!

I think I'm relieved, anyway. So, a couple years ago, I decided I wanted the website thegynas.com, and I bought it, presenting stickers with the website to the other girls for Christmas. I really didn't know what I was doing, having had only home pages before, never whole domain names. I picked a company pretty much at random and have stuck with them because I really don't know how to change. Frankly, doing anything web site related can be a big pain in the ass, since they have to authorize stuff through like four other companies and make sure you're really you, and you may trust that EVERYTHING you do costs additional money. Anyway, it's time to renew, and I've procrastinated a bit, because renewal is due tomorrow, but they've been able to do it instantly by credit card in the past. Only this time, I keep getting messages that I can't pay by credit from this IP address. I try it about fifteen different ways, but nothing works. Finally I contact the support people and it turns out that they are no longer taking credit card payments from outside the UK due to some fraud they experienced last year. Well thanks for letting me know in advance! Anyway, I can't mail a check, because it would have had to be there about yesterday. Still, the nice customer service guy says he'll forward my message to the accounting department because I'm an existing customer.

Funny, but the website is based in the UK, so it's all in British English, like asking if I want to pay by "cheque." None of it's too hard to follow, but I feel like a real dolt when I try not to sound too much like an American redneck in my requests for help. "Whatever am I to do?" that kind of thing. "I cannot make a payment by cheque." Heh.

This one's for the ladies . . .
So, I had this snowball shopping experience this weekend. I went to get my hair cut and highlighted, and I have some extra time, so I go to Express to look at the "Editor" pant, which I read in a magazine had a flattering cut. I fall in love with the lavender velvet version and pick them up for the holidays. They're a bit long for flat shoes though, and I hate wearing pumps to family parties, so naturally my thoughts turn to the ankle boots I'm seeing everywhere. I go to Nordstrom rack and try on a bunch of pairs, and while there, see a great pink fuzzy sweater, too. Now all I need is like a champagne colored camisole to go with the pants, and I'm set. Wait, didn't I just to to the mall to get my hair done?

I'm still Nanowrimoing, and I'm over 18,000 words. I guess I'd better come up with a plot soon.

We went to Apple Hill this weekend (Portlandians -- a collection of mostly apple orchards with some other produce and crafty stuff). I went a little crazy, deciding to try at least two (so Piggs and I could each have one) of all the kinds of apples I'd never had before. We came home with Winesaps, Mutsus, Arkansas Blacks . . . but I didn't label them or anything, so next year it'll be like "Look for those smallish red ones, those were good." We also have a big bag of tangerines from drummergirl and some persimmons, gigantic Asian pears (I ate one today) and ten cute "Lady Apples," which are tiny. We're like crazy fruitheads around Mockula's castle/the Piggpen.

Okay, that's about it. Take care, all.

I lied

Yeah, so I said I wouldn't slack off on the blog because of Nanowrimo, but I lied. Writing 2,000 words a day is hard, especially when I have no idea where the plot is going. Nevertheless, I'm less than 1,000 words behind, total, which puts me at 13,047 words right now. Not bad, huh? Zoombaba, I guess you'd better get on it! Consider this friendly encouragement, or outright taunting if that works better for you.

In other news, Monkeygirl has an adorable new cat, Nibbler. Nibbler is a tiny little tuxedo cat with long hair, and is a complete spaz in the way that only new kittens are. You know, grown up cats will occasionally do something stupid, get caught at it, but look nonchalant, like "what? Don't you ever get stuck at the top of the screen door?" But a kitten does stuff like this about twenty times a day and doesn't know enough to look embarrassed or tough. Nibbler kept doing things like leaping off the chair onto the side of the ottoman, sideways of course, falling on her ass, then looking at up at us because she heard the laughing. "Huh? What?" Cute. Makes me want a baby kitten again, instead of my big old fat cat who refuses to play. My cat's a tease . . . she'll look at the toys, you'll be encouraged to wave them around and jingle the little bells, you'll continue doing this for half an hour while she looks interested, crouching, lowering her ears, twitching her tail . . . but no action. It's boring. She's good for cuddling, though.

I went to the Naked Lounge coffee shop to do my nanowrimoing tonight (Piggs is gaming), and it was really crowded. I sat in a small armchair next to a loveseat two college girls were sharing, and I got a Mexican hot chocolate (delicious). I wrote for quite a while, and I looked around once in a while to take in the folks around me, and I did notice the two young women to my left who were soon joined by an older, well-put-together blond woman, maybe in her thirties. When the college girls left, these three moved closer to me, bringing over an extra chair. Two other younger girls soon joined them and brought more chairs. Now I was sort of involuntarily part of a circle, so I grabbed my drink off the table and turned my chair a little so it didn't look like I was actually in the circle. Soon, I heard the older woman sort of take charge, asking to hear the "highs and lows" of the girls' weeks (one of the girls called them "Sweet 'n' Lows" and they all giggled). I overheard a little, but was trying to focus on my own stuff. One of them had boy problems (she liked a guy more as a friend, but he didn't know it yet and had "I heart my Maya" written on his phone), and another was rear-ended on the freeway. I had noticed with a slight eerie feeling that there were a few bibles lying around, and one of the girls had in fact complimented the older women on her bible, saying that she had just been looking at that one in the bookstore. Soon, as I feared, they started their bible study group. I was a little distracted already, but then all their guy friends came in, started complaining that it was hot, stood around the girls (and me) and propped the door open. I had been looking around for a while for another chair, and that was the last straw -- I found a chair and moved, fast. Then I noticed a knitting circle around another couch, and I had a wierd sense of deja vu, because I am sure that I read somebody's blog (article, letter?) about reading in a coffee shop and suddenly finding themselves surrounded completely by a knitting circle. Also strange was that one of the women in the knitting circle had the exact same sweater and a really similar hairstyle to the bible group leader. I actually did about a triple-take.

Today I noticed a new Calvin pissing sticker with "Omarosa" underneath the stream. Seriously. How can you possibly feel so strongly about a losing character on a reality TV show.

When I borrowed my dad's big giant truck to move two weeks ago, I noticed an odd phenomenon. Now, I only had it for a few hours, so it may not be a representative sample, but if this happens all the time, I'm confused: Everywhere I went, much smaller vehicles seemed to wait until I was a few yards away, then pull out right in front of me, no matter how much space there was either in front of or behind me. It was like they were suicidal -- I was barrelling down the street (understand that "barrelling" describes driving within the legal speed limits, of course, but on many streets those are 35 to 40 MPH) and these little Yugos (okay, I'm kidding -- Hondas and stuff) kept waiting in driveways until I was nearly upon them, then pulling out in front of me and going 20. What? Why would you do something like that? It was like in Yosemite, when a friend and I were riding our bikes and these kamikaze squirrels kept throwing themselves in front of our bike tires. Except it wasn't like that, because they didn't stay right in front of the bikes, and the bikes would have needed to weigh like a trillion times as much for these situations to be approximate. Why would you do that? If you are a driver, may I suggest not doing that? If a big-ass Ford 250 is hurtling towards you, either go while it's still far away or wait until it passes. Sheesh.

Okay, that's pretty much it for now.

Le sigh . . .

For once I am actually all caught up at work, so I keep checking my e-mail for friendly voices, but alas, I am alone . . .

Miscellany

Well hello there. I just have a few miscellaneous tidbits to share.
First, Piggs is an excellent breadmaker. We were supposed to make bread together, but because I wasn't feeling very good yesterday, I pretty much abandoned the task to him (with occasional kibbitzing), and now we have two delicious loaves of homemade French bread. Actually, more like one and a quarter, now that we've scarfed most of one loaf.

I hung out with/babysat a 6 year old yesterday. She has more energy than I do at my best, but she sure as hell beats the crap out of me when I'm sinus-head-explody. Nevertheless, we managed to watch "Shrek 2," eat dinner, play dominoes, Uno, go fish, and Curses (this was more interpretive than usual), play several rounds of "animals," do some stuffed animal role playing in which Racky Racoon repeatedly ran away and was attacked by bad guys, read some books, and found out what all of our favorite breakfast foods, times of year, desserts, fruits, movies, DVDs, etc. were. I'm still recovering.

I started NaNoWriMo, and since I am too lazy to include links, you will have to Google it yourself to find out the challenge. I'm already 2,000 words behind, by my calculations. I would say that you could expect to see less of me in the "blogosphere,"* but since we still don't have cable TV to waste time on, I may very well have the energy to post my random bullshit on here as well as writing 47,876 more words of random bullshit for NaNoWriMo.

*I have seen the word blogosphere pop up more and more times outside of said sphere, like in the newspaper. I'm betting that it will be A: one of the newest dictionary entries this year and B: one of the words on Life in Hell's end-of-the-year words we're tired of list.

Good stuff, too

Okay, this morning has reminded me that there's a lot of good stuff about my job, too. First, LeKeisha came in to talk to me -- she does almost every morning. She talks about shoes, her uncle, doing hair, her baby brother . . . but she chooses to come talk to ME every morning. Then Tony comes in, and I had forgotten, but a few weeks ago, I was bending over to pick up a piece of trash and my tattoo showed for a second. It's an apple, and the kids nearby asked why. I teased that "in the OLDEN days when people LIKED their teachers, they would bring them an apple." Tony walked in with an apple for me this morning and put it on my desk.
Nick and Gary have made a game of being the first one to ask for my Sports section to read. Today Nick showed up 20 minutes before school with a big grin on his face. He got it.
Last week Jennifer in 3rd period brought me crispy M&Ms twice until I thanked her and told her she didn't need to bring me candy. Gayb tells me every day that I look nice, even when I know I don't.
Seriously, even when I have bad days, I need to remember that there's a lot of god, too.

Democracy is making me fat.

Well, that and chocolate chip cookies. No, seriously, cortisol, the hormone you produce when under stress, is linked to fat around the midsection, and that's totally where I'm fat!

Okay, really, this post is best skipped if you're in a good mood and don't want to be brought down, because I haven't sat down to blog in a while, and I have some things to say.

First of all, I've been reading a lot about the need to reunite as a nation, to put our differences behind us and look toward the future. And as someone brought up with good morals, who values the idea of unity, I would like to answer the question "Can't we all just get along?" by saying . . . No! NO, screw you guys! I'm not playing! Listen, there's a huge gap between putting aside minor differences or agreeing to disagree and completely forsaking all your beliefs and values, and to back President Bush in any way would mean that I would have to betray myself and all my ideals. Do I agree to disagree with lots of people on lots of issues? Sure I do. Every day, practically. But these are not those kinds of issues. Bush now has a Republican controlled Senate, and may be able to appoint a Supreme Court Justice. This system (which I do value -- I LOVE my country, although I'm a little disappointed in its people right now) has checks and balances for a reason, and we're throwing it away. We have a Bill of Rights for a reason, and we're throwing its protections away. I think the patriotic thing to do here IS to throw a fit about it. Our country is quickly turning away from its most precious assets and becoming something new, something different, something I don't like much. Something like a theocracy. Something like a dictatorship. And what's worse, we voted for it.

Bush fucked the environment, the economy, the lives of thousands of American soldiers, the lives of numerous Iraqi and Afghan people, our standing in the court of world opinion, the law (don't get me started on all the Republican-fed examples of voter fraud, or Halliburton), the 1st amendment (reporters are being jailed for not revealing their sources, and the right of the people to peaceably assemble? Try it around the RNC), the 6th amendment (one word --- Guantanamo), he's trying real hard to fuck the tenth amendment (by taking away states' rights in regard to gay marriage), he's handed fat contracts to his cronies and given fatter tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent, he'd like very much to privatize social security (score one for fucking the elderly) . . . To say that the list goes on is a gross understatement. And yet, (THIS IS FOR YOU, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) you voted him in for a second term? What, are you nuts? High? Has the crack rock epidemic gotten this bad? I had no idea . . . Okay, listen, I get the Christian Coalition folks voting for him. How could you not? The guy swears he's got a direct line to God. I get the wealthy -- he scratches your back, vice versa. I get the Texas loyal cowboy thing (although the bastard is about as much of a cowboy as I am, but he's cultivated the image). I get the NRA folks -- he sure enough has devoted himself to your cause. But poor folks? Hello? What has he done for you lately? Anybody ever planning to need Social Security? How about health care? Yo, women? (At least most of you went Kerry.) Minorities? Anybody out there? Gays? Everybody who professes a faith other than Christian, or no faith at all? Where the hell were you? Okay, I guess you were the 48%. I sure as hell hope you were. How do the numbers add up this way? I just don't get it.

You know, not to get all self-help-y here, but I'm really stressed, and I started thinking about this book I read several years ago. You've probably heard of it -- Reviving Ophelia. It's basically a breakdown of all the ways teenaged girls can be messed up, with case studies. I was just reading it for the heck of it, when I came upon the teenage Count Mockula chapter. Yeah, there's a whole chapter about the specific ways in which I was messed up as a teen. Basically, smart sensitive girls tend to go through a depression because they start hearing about all the fucked up shit in the world that they can't do anything about, (animal testing, apartheid, FGM, whatever) and they haven't grown that hard cynical outer shell that allows grown-ups to go "Wow, that sucks" and get on with their lives. So they get depressed because they feel helpless, and the not-quite-as-smart set usually doesn't give a rat's ass because they don't seek out the info in the first place. Anyway, I haven't felt that way in a long time, because I did (finally) grow the "Wow that sucks" shell. But I feel like this election got through the shell a little. Like, I feel both knowledgeable of all the bad stuff that's going on and helpless to prevent it. Maybe I need a little news fast. Maybe that would help. I'm a bit of a junkie, though.

Okay, off politics, I'm pissed about work, too.
Number 1 -- Mrs. R gets yelled at by a parent who says she's been trying to reach us for three weeks to arrange a meeting and no one has called her back. The parent immediately calls back and gets the principal, who hands off the message to another teacher (one not in our usual meeting group). None of us has EVER gotten a message from her before. When I talk to her, she says she's called twice -- talked the the receptionist once and the attendance clerk once. I have no idea where those messages went, but it all comes down to me, because as house leader, I'm the one who's supposed to be making the callbacks. But how can I if I never get the messages?

Number 2 -- I frequently threaten to keep my 2nd period late after the bell (they're assholes), but rarely do it. I basically tell them that if they can all sit down at one time for like a second, I'll dismiss them. Well, Monday I'm trying to get the "Everybody's ass in a chair during the exact same second" thing happening and the bell has already rung. Am I a fascist? No. Touch your derriere to the plastic, and you can go. One of the many kids I have whose name is spelled wrong says "I'm leaving!" and barges out the door. I send a referral to the office. All you have to do is SIT DOWN and I'll dismiss you, but instead you left without being dismissed after being asked repeatedly to sit down (and by the way, given plenty of warning before the bell rang). The referral comes back this morning with an indication that SpelledWrong has received NO punishment at all for his defiance, and I get kind of a funky tone from the note, which says that he was worried about being late to his next class, and therefore did the right thing, and I had put in in a difficult position, because he would get a referral from me if he left (um, not if he put his ass down and got dismissed) and the next teacher if he was tardy (for the record, no teacher I know gives referrals for being tardy). So the VP made it seem like I put him between a rock and a hard place, when in actuality there was one soft option (follow instructions and get dismissed on time, thereby getting to your next class on time) and he chose to do it the hard way. Except I guess it isn't the hard way, because you can do whatever the fuck you want and not get in trouble if you tell your sob story to the VP. Incidentally, this kid is no angel who was just anxious about being on time -- he's been suspended EVERY DAY THIS WEEK, we've met with his mom, and he must have a file with 20 referrals in it. Whatever, I'm changing my classroom rules sign from the official one to one that says "Classroom rules: None." And I'm getting a nameplate that says "Ms. Doormat."

Number 3 - Our principal seems to think if he finds something to be "for the good of the order," we should all hang around for countless hours of our own free time to listen to it. Today was only our second meeting of the year, but it's the second meeting at which the designated ending time has been totally ignored in favor of some speaker he's invited in. Now, first of all, if you really want us to hear this speaker's presentation, shouldn't you have them start it before 3:40 when our meeting is scheduled to end at 3:45? Second, if you think it's so important that we should all stay and listen, send out an e-mail ahead of time asking us to stay. Or schedule it on a different day and ask people to sign up for it and get credit towards staff development hours. But for the second time now he has simply expected us to stay without any prior warning, or even an announcement like "I know it's time for you to go home, but I would really appreciate it if you could stay and hear this speaker. If you need to go, I understand, and now is a good time." Instead, he leaves us to pack up and sneak out if we need (or just want) to go home, to our lives, where we're also not getting paid, but at least have our own agenda. This has also pre-empted scheduled union meetings for two months in a row. I feel bad for sneaking out (I know it's rude to the presenter) but it's MY FUCKING TIME and also, I signed up for the exact same workshop she was giving today and attended it three days ago, so I already have the information (and I DID get staff development credit). Why on earth would I sit through it again for nothing? No money, no credit, not even any new educational opportunities.

I'm CRAAAAAAAANNNNNNKKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYY. But at least now I've gotten it all (I think) off my chest, and maybe now I'll be able to move on to bigger and better things. Oh, wait, one last thing. I've always been somewhat politically active (money to PETA, breast cancer research, to various other causes, letters to the editor, lawn signs, faithful voting, fundraising for AIDS -- nothing big), but the one thing I can say that was positive that came out of this election for me is that I am re-committed to working for my ideals. I may not have a lot of time, but I can sure as hell put my money where my mouth is, and I know some causes that will need help more than ever now that our country has gone retarded, I mean Republican. For example, Planned Parenthood and NOW could probably use a hand. It turns out that this time, my vote really didn't count, but that doesn't mean my voice won't be heard. I'm not waiting aroung for 2008 to improve my world. Fight back against our loss of freedoms. Fight back against policies you don't believe in. Fight back against government corruption, fraud, lies, and immoral wars. Do what you can. Fight back.

Hey red states!

F you! You suck. "Duuh, I'm gonna vote for a cowboy! He's a good old boy just like me! He's dumb, just like me! He's got a limited voca . . . er, he don't talk good, just like me! Also, I heard uv him before, like, his name was on the teevee, and I didn't recognize none uh them other fellas on the ballot. Plus, he likes guns! And he says he ain't gonna raise my taxes, like that other fella with the girl name, Carrie, heh. I'm gonna go pick my nose a while."

There's more for you later . . .

Work

is hell today.

Every once in a while we just have a retarded day, where they can't listen to save their little lives. Even the principal is pissed, having made two "get your act together" kind of announcements over the loudspeaker.
Today, question 6 is "Draw a diagram showing how Columbia played a practical joke on Olaf." I wrote it on the board. I read it to them. I actually did the diagram myself yesterday. I explained in detail what happened in the practical joke. I told them what diagram meant. I told them what to draw. I drew it on the board myself, and pointed to it and said "draw this." Really, there was more -- it went on for about 15 minutes. And I STILL had kids saying "I don't know what to do."

Top ten responses from kids caught talking:
10: He was talking to me.
9: I was just talking to myself.
8: I wasn't talking, I was just saying . . .
7: I wasn't talking, I was whispering.
6: No, I was just telling him something.
5: He asked me a question.
4: He has my thing.
3: Can I get some water? (The deflective question.)
2: I was talking about the assignment.
1: What? I wasn't talking.

Okay, the political stuff

is really more Piggs' thing (I'm informed and involved, I just keep it to myself most of the time), but this was so funny I had to share:

The Sloganator